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PortrAit// The HZDR Research Magazine WWW.Hzdr.DE 52 53 The 36-year-old physicist Shengqiang Zhou has been living in Dresden since 2005, where he first worked at HZDR as a PhD student of TU Dresden. He was working on implanting magnetic ions into zinc oxide to endow the semiconductor with new properties. At the time, zinc oxide – a completely harmless substance used in medical creams for example – had gained interest as a possible player in novel memory media for computer technology. Zhou discovered, however, that it is more difficult than expected to functionalize zinc oxide with specific magnetic properties. His findings, published in Applied Physics Letters in 2006, have accordingly been cited many times since. After completing his doctorate, Shengqiang Zhou continued his research on the magnetic properties of materials as a postdoc at the HZDR, this time concentrating on more conventional semiconductors. “My dream is to advance these materials used in present-day micro- and nanoelectronics, that they may one day become magnetic semiconductors in a new generation of memory materials. My group and I are employing various methods in our experiments, including ion beam technology, for instance, to synthesize magnetic semiconductors or controllable magnetic nanoparticles targetedly into the surfaces of germanium and silicon,” Zhou explains. After a one-year interruption to work as a research professor at Beijing University in China, Shengqiang Zhou returned to HZDR to head the Young Investigators’ Group “Ion beam processed functional materials for spintronics and photovoltaics”. This group is funded by the Helmholtz Association. In addition to extensive experimental and analytical facilities at the Rossendorf Ion Beam Center, Zhou and his Young Investigators’ Group have access to the outstanding experimental conditions of the “HZDR Beamline” at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. Distinguished in China The HZDR researcher Shengqiang Zhou was awarded the IBMM Prize at the eponymous conference in Qingdao, China, held from 2 to 7 September 2012. This was the first time the conference was held in China. The prize, which comes with a 1,000 dollar cash award, is given every second year to an outstanding junior scientist working in the field of ion beam modifications of materials – which is what the acronym IBMM stands for. The IBMM Prize 2012 acknowledges Zhou’s work on the implementation of ion beams for magnetic semiconductor materials as well as his careful analyses of the underlying physical mechanisms. Around 300 materials scientists and physicists interested in ion-solid interactions and their technological applications were present at the IBMM 2012. Literature Dr. Zhou has produced a series of well-published scientific papers, such as the work mentioned earlier, appearing in Applied Physics Letters (DOI: 10.1063/1.3048076). Two of his papers have been cited even more often: (1) “Crystallographically oriented Co and Ni nanocrystals inside ZnO formed by ion implantation and postannealing”, in Physical Review B, vol. 77/3 (DOI: 10.1103/ PhysRevB.77.035209) (2) “Fe implanted ferromagnetic ZnO”, in Applied Physics Letters, vol. 88/5 (DOI: 10.1063/1.2169912) // Shengqiang Zhou is head of a Helmholtz Young Investigators’ Group at HZDR that is currently researching novel magnetic semiconductor materials for future information technology. His contributions to this field recently earned him the prize of the international conference IBMM 2012. Text . Christine Bohnet Translation . Peter Gregg International award for Shengqiang Zhou Contact _Helmholtz Young Investigators’ Group at HZDR: Ion beam processed functional materials for spintronics and photovoltaics Dr. Shengqiang Zhou s.zhou@hzdr.de RECOGNIZED: Recipient S. Zhou (left) heads the HZDR’s first-ever Helmholtz junior scientist group (left to right: W. Luo, Y. Wang, D. Bürger, S. Prucnal, and K. Gao).

discovered 02_2012

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