Michel Kenzelmann

Michel Kenzelmann received a D.Phil. from Oxford University in 2001 with his work on low-dimensional topological quantum magnetism using neutron scattering. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University and NIST (USA) from 2001 and 2004 studying quantum magnetism and magnetically-indued ferroelectricity. From 2004 to 2008, he held a professor fellowship of the Swiss National Science Foundation at ETH Zürich. He now holds a titular professorship at the University of Basel where he teaches courses on large-facility experimental methods for condensed matter physics, and advanced materials and their applications.

From 2008 to 2017 he led the Laboratory for Scientific Developments and Novel Materials. In this role, he was responsible for the technical aspects of SINQ instrumentation, and played a leading role in the SINQ upgrade project and the Paul Scherrer Institut's (PSI) involvement at ESS. Since 2017 he leads the Laboratory for Neutron Scattering and Imaging at the Paul Scherrer Institut, and directs the scientific program of SINQ. He is a board member of the recently founded tech-transfer public-private partnership ANAXAM at PSI. He is also a member of the Swiss Nano Institute, and for the last 7 years has been a principal investigator of the Center on Computational Design and Discovery of Novel Materials (MARVEL) that attempts to provide simulation software for experimentalists at large facilities. In 2020, he founded a Soft Matter group at SINQ, and plays a leading role in the current planning of the neutron imaging instrument upgrades at SINQ.

His research interests are solid materials where strong magnetic fluctuations lead to emergent behavior. This includes novel quantum phases in low-dimensional quantum magnets and frustrated materials, magnetically-driven ferroelectricity, novel magnetic phases in Pauli-limited superconductors and phases featuring electronic order and interactions beyond the dipole approximation.