Roman Fasel received his Ph.D. in Physics in 1996 from the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) and joined Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, after post-doctoral research fellowships at La Trobe University (Melbourne) and the Fritz-Haber-Institute (Berlin). He is the head of the nanotech@surfaces Laboratory of Empa, and adjunct professor at the Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of Bern. Roman Fasel has a strong background in surface physics and chemistry, and follows an experimental approach building on state-of-the-art scanning probe methods (UHV temperature-controlled STM/STS/nc-AFM) combined with structural and spectroscopic methods based on photoelectron emission (XPS, UPS, XPD). His group’s research covers a wide range of topics at the interface of materials science, surface physics and chemistry. It aims at developing a fundamental understanding of the structural and electronic properties of low-dimensional nanomaterials and systems, and at establishing a rational basis for their application in next generation technologies. Roman Fasel and his team are among the pioneers of the novel and rapidly evolving field of on-surface synthesis. They have pioneered the bottom-up approach to the synthesis of graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) which yields atomically precise nanoribbon structures with widely tunable (opto)electronic properties. Roman Fasel is the co-inventor of different aspects of GNR fabrication and application that have been covered by 6 patents. He has given numerous invited talks at international conferences and at research institutions and universities world-wide, and has published more than 240 peer-reviewed papers totaling over 16'000 citations (h-index 62).

Surface physics and chemistry; Nanostructured materials and surfaces; On-surface synthesis; Carbon-based nanomaterials, Graphene nanoribbons

A. Kinikar, X. Xu, M. Di Giovannantonio, O. Gröning, K. Eimre, C. A. Pignedoli, K. Müllen, A. Narita, P. Ruffieux, R. Fasel, On-surface synthesis of edge-extended zigzag graphene nanoribbons, Adv. Mater. 35, 2306311 (2023). DOI: 10.1002/adma.202306311

J. Zhang, L. Qian, G. Borin Barin, A. H. S. Daaoub, P. Chen, K. Müllen, S. Sangtarash, P. Ruffieux, R. Fasel, H. Sadeghi, J. Zhang, M. Calame, M. L. Perrin, Contacting individual graphene nanoribbons using carbon nanotube electrodes, Nat. Electron. 6, 572 (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41928-023-00991-3

A. Kinikar, M. Di Giovannantonio, J. I. Urgel, K. Eimre, Z. Qiu, Y. Gu, E. Jin, A. Narita, X.-Y. Wang, K. Müllen, P. Ruffieux, C. A. Pignedoli, R. Fasel, On-surface polyarylene synthesis by cycloaromatization of isopropyl substituents, Nat. Synth. 1, 289 (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s44160-022-00032-5

S. Mishra, G. Catarina, F. Wu, R. Ortiz, D. Jacob, K. Eimre, J. Ma, C. A. Pignedoli, X. Feng, P. Ruffieux, J. Fernández-Rossier, and R. Fasel, Observation of fractional edge excitations in nanographene spin chains, Nature 598, 287-292 (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03842-3

S. Mishra, D. Beyer, K. Eimre, S. Kezilebieke, R. Berger, O. Gröning, C. A. Pignedoli, K. Müllen, P. Liljeroth, P. Ruffieux, X. Feng, R. Fasel, Topological frustration induces unconventional magnetism in a nanographene, Nat. Nanotechnol. 15, 22–28 (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41565-019-0577-9

S. Wang, Q. Sun, O. Gröning, R. Widmer, C. A. Pignedoli, L. Cai, X. Yu, B. Yuan, C. Li, H. Ju, J. Zhu, P. Ruffieux, R. Fasel, W. Xu, On-surface synthesis and characterization of individual polyacetylene chains, Nat. Chem. 11, 924-930 (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41557-019-0316-8

O. Gröning, S. Wang, X. Yao, C. A. Pignedoli, G. Borin Barin, C. Daniels, A. Cupo, V. Meunier, A. Narita, K. Müllen, P. Ruffieux, R. Fasel, Engineering of robust topological quantum phases in graphene nanoribbons, Nature 560, 209–213 (2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0375-9

P. Ruffieux, S. Wang, B. Yang, C. Sanchez, J. Liu, T. Dienel, L. Talirz, P. Shinde, C. Pignedoli, D. Passerone, T. Dumslaff, X. Feng, K. Müllen, R. Fasel, On-surface synthesis of graphene nanoribbons with zigzag edge topology, Nature 531, 489–492 (2016). DOI : 10.1038/nature17151

J. Cai, C. A. Pignedoli, L. Talirz, P. Ruffieux, H. Söde, L. Liang, V. Meunier, R. Berger, R. Li, X. Feng, K. Müllen, and R. Fasel, Graphene nanoribbon heterojunctions, Nature Nanotechnology  9, 896–900 (2014). DOI : 10.1038/nnano.2014.184

J. Cai, P. Ruffieux, R. Jaafar, M. Bieri, T. Braun, S. Blankenburg, M. Muoth, A. P. Seitsonen, M. Saleh, X. Feng, K. Müllen, and R. Fasel, Atomically precise bottom-up fabrication of graphene nanoribbons, Nature 466, 470–473 (2010). DOI: 10.1038/nature09211

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