Claudia Felser awarded the 2023 Europhysics Prize

On a bi-annual basis, the Europhysics Prize is awarded by the Condensed Matter Division of the European Physical Society in recognition of recent work (completed in the 5 years preceding the attribution of the award) by one or more individuals, for scientific excellence in the area of condensed matter physics. It is one of Europe’s most prestigious prizes in the field with several laureates having also received a Nobel Prize in Physics or Chemistry.

ICFOnians congratulate Prof. Dr. Claudia Felser, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids and Distinguished Invited Professor (DIP) at ICFO who, together with Prof. Dr. B. Andrei Bernevig, professor of physics at Princeton University, today accepted this prestigious award “for seminal contributions to the classification, prediction, and discovery of novel topological quantum materials” at the 30th General Conference of the EPS Condensed Matter Division held in Milan.

Prof. Felser is a solid state chemist and materials scientist, known for her work on Heusler compounds and related filled tetrahedral structure types, and the design, synthesis and physical investigation of new quantum materials. Her most recent research focuses on new materials for quantum technologies such as topological insulators, Weyl and Dirac semimetals, skyrmions, superconductors, new fermions, and new quasiparticles.  

Through Felser’s appointment as a DIP at ICFO, she will participate in research activities related to QTwist, a new macro-program at ICFO which has received funding from the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain. Within QTwist's ambitious research program, she, along with ICREA Prof. at ICFO Dr. Frank Koppens, and MIT Professor and DIP at ICFO Dr. Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, will lead frontier research on the fundamental properties of emerging synthetic quantum materials, including two-dimensional materials, and their potential future applications in nano-optoelectronics. A unique board of renowned scientists, including ICFOnians Professors Dr. Adrian Bachtold and Dr. Carmen Rubio-Verdú, together with global leaders from Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Princeton, Pisa and the Weizmann Institute, will also bring their expertise to the program.