Image: Joern Bannies, former PhD researcher, UBC Blusson QMI.

Joern Bannies received his PhD degree from UBC under the supervision of Blusson QMI principal investigators Sarah Burke and Meigan Aronson. At QMI, he studied how the symmetry of the atomic arrangement in materials can be manipulated to engineer their electronic properties.

His background in chemistry and physics helped him to approach the question from different angles, while using advanced techniques to resolve the changes in both structure and electronic properties.

“What fascinates me is that the shape of a crystal that you can hold in your hand directly reflects the symmetry of the atomic order that is otherwise invisible to our eye. But with the specialized techniques available in QMI, we can actually look at the atomic order and the electronic structure in real time. QMI not only provides these excellent facilities but also an environment where people with different backgrounds and expertise work closely together to solve complex interdisciplinary problems,” Joern says.

Joern has now moved on to a Postdoc position at UC Berkeley and hopes to apply some of the concepts developed in his PhD to low-dimensional materials to explore new forms of magnetism in thin layers of materials.

Learn more about Joern’s research here.