Pierangelo Gröning Head of department, Swiss Federal Laboratoires for Materials Testing and Research (EMPA) Switzerland

Pierangelo Gröning got his master in Electrical Engineering in 1981 from the Engineer School Biel/Bienne (CH). In October 1981, he joined Brown Boveri Company (later ABB) where he developed high power electronic converters for rail ways. After five years in industry he went back to academia and studied Physics and Mathematics at the University of Fribourg (CH), where he obtained his PhD in Solid State Physics in 1993. From 1993 to 2002 he was Staff Scientist and Lecturer at the University of Fribourg (CH). In 2002, he joined the Swiss Federal Laboratories of Materials Testing and Research (Empa), where he set-up a new research section active in Solid State Physics and on organic and inorganic nanostructures on surfaces.

Since April 2006 Dr. Gröning is head of the Advanced Materials and Surfaces Department and member of the board of directors at Empa. He is author/co-author of more than 110 scientific publications and was awarded with the Swiss Technology Award in 1997. His scientific interests are on the electronic properties of carbon nanotubes, the synthesis of organic nanowires and their electronic properties, molecular-self assembly at surfaces, and on the surface and electronic structure of quasicrystals and complex metallic alloys.