Oliver Gröning has joined Empa in 2001 with the mission to initiate and support the creation of the new nanotech@surfaces Laboratory at the Empa site in Thun. He is currently the Deputy Head of this laboratory and Leader of the Functional Surfaces Group. Oliver Gröning received his Ph.D. in experimental Physics in 1999 from the University of Fribourg on the topic of the field emission of electrons from carbon nanostructures. During his post-doctoral work (1999-2001) and later at Empa he continued this research in collaboration with industrial partners like Motorola, Thales, Comet, Philips and Sony in order to develop electron sources for applications in displays, X-Ray tubes and HF-amplifiers. In parallel from 2001 he supported the build-up of the nanotech@surfaces Laboratory focused on the research of surface related nanostructures with a strong emphasis on UHV low-temperature STM/STS and photoelectron spectroscopy. His research interests in this field are the investigation and understanding of molecular processes at surfaces at the atomic level and a detailed understanding of the atomic – electronic structure relationship. Particular examples in this context are the investigation of atomic defects in single-walled carbon nanotubes, the electronic structure of quasicrystal surfaces, the interaction of organic molecules with the surfaces of intermetallic compounds and the electronic properties of on-surface synthesized carbon nanostructures.
Dr. Oliver Gröning has given numerous invited talks at international conferences, universities and research institutions, and has published more than 120 peer-reviewed papers totaling over 5000 citations.

Surface physics and chemistry; nanostructured materials and surfaces; carbon nanotubes; complex metallic alloys and intermetallic compounds; electronic structure; molecule – surface interactions; catalysis; scanning probe methods; photoemission spectroscopy

S. F. L. Mertens, A. Hemmi, S. Muff, O. Gröning, S. De Feyter, J. Osterwalder, T. Greber, Switching stiction and adhesion of a liquid on a solid, Nature 534, 676 (2016) DOI:10.1038/nature18275

L. Liu, T. Dienel, R. Widmer, O. Gröning, Interplay between Energy-Level Position and Charging Effect of Manganese Phthalocyanines on an Atomically Thin Insulator, ACS Nano 9, 10125 (2015) DOI:10.1021/acsnano.5b03741

V. A. Rogalev, O. Gröning, R. Widmer, J. H. Dil, F. Bisti, L. L. Lev, T. Schmitt & V. N. Strocov, Fermi states and anisotropy of Brillouin zone scattering in the decagonal AlNiCo quasicrystal, Nature Communications 6, 8607 (2015) DOI:10.1038/ncomms9607

T. Dienel , S. Kawai , H. Söde , X. Feng , K. Müllen , P. Ruffieux , R. Fasel , O. Gröning, Resolving Atomic Connectivity in Graphene Nanostructure Junctions, Nano Lett. 15(8), 5185-5190 (2015). DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b01403

J. Prinz, O. Gröning, H. Brune, R. Widmer, Highly Enantioselective Adsorption of Small Prochiral Molecules on a Chiral Intermetallic Compound, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 54, 3902-3906 (2015) DOI:10.1002/ange.201410107

F. Andrianiazy, J.-P. Mazellier, L. Sabaut, L. Gangloff, P. Legagneux, O. Gröning, Quantitative characterization of field emission parameters: Application to statistical analysis of individual carbon nanotubes/nanofibers, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 33, 012201(2015) DOI:10.1116/1.4902019

For a complete list of publications since 2001, please click here.