Christian Schönenberger

Christian Schönenberger (born 5 July 1956 in Zürich ) is a Swiss experimental physicist and professor at the University of Basel working on nanoscience and nanoelectronics.

Biography and career Schönenberger studied electrical engineering and obtained his degree in 1979. While working as an engineer in a research lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, he became interested in natural science and studied physics, obtaining his diploma from the institute in 1986. As a graduate student, he worked under the supervision of Heinrich Rohrer (Nobel Prize laureate in 1986) and S. Alvarado at the IBM Research Laboratory at Rüschlikon and received his PhD in physics with a thesis on magnetic force microscopy in 1990. and by realizing the quantum optical Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect for the first time with electrons and demonstrated the anti-bunching effects arising from their fermionic statistics and he demonstrated electron transport through DNA molecules.

In particular, he and his group are a leader in the study of electronic properties of "hybrid" devices, that combine normal metals with superconductors and ferromagnetic elements. The latter introduce by the proximity effect non-trivial correlations such as a pairing or exchange field. This can give rise to new correlated many-body quantum states. Examples are topological states, molecular Andreev-bound states and Majorana-like states. Other applications include the generation of spatially separated entangled electrons using a Cooper pair splitter. More recently, the group investigates ultra-clean and suspended devices, which allow to couple the electrical and mechanical degrees of freedom of the device at the quantum limit.

Selected publications

Selected honors and awards 1991 Swiss Physical Society Award in General Physics (for his PhD thesis) 2010 Lifetime member of the Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences (SATW) 2012 Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) 2022 Honorary Member of the Swiss Nanoscience Institute