Laëtitia Farinacci assembles atomic building blocks to create previously unknown properties. She has now taken up a Professorship in Solid-State Physics in Würzburg, where she will be a part of the Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat.

At the heart of Laëtitia Farinacci’s work is the question of how individual atoms can be arranged with precision and how their magnetic properties can be controlled. To do this, she rearranges atomic building blocks. This “Lego with atoms” can fundamentally alter the properties of materials, producing, for example, unusual magnetic states, optical effects, or interactions between particles. Approaches like this are crucial for the development of future quantum technologies.

Research at the nanoscale

“At the atomic level, materials often behave very differently than they do in everyday life,” says Junior Professor Farinacci. “I am particularly interested in how magnetic states can be controlled and dynamically influenced at the nanoscale – and what new functions might emerge as a result.”

A key focus of her research is the dynamics of magnetic processes, because the arrangement of atoms is not the only decisive factor. Just as important is how their properties change over time and how these changes can be harnessed for technological applications. To explore this, Farinacci investigates the interplay between magnetism and superconductivity – a state in which electrical resistance disappears.

Toward the quantum components of the future

Farinacci’s work has major potential for future applications. The precise control of the magnetic properties of individual atoms and molecules lays important foundations for new components in quantum information technology. In the long term, this knowledge could help pave the way for extremely small and energy-efficient memory devices, high-precision quantum sensors, or components for quantum computers.

“In the lab, I work with a scanning tunneling microscope and place individual molecules and atoms on various surfaces made of gold, ultrathin insulating layers, or lead, which is a superconductor,” explains Farinacci. “We bring an extremely sharp conductive tip very close to the molecule and then measure how the current flows. This allows us to characterize the properties of the atom or molecule. We then investigate whether it retains its magnetic properties, whether the magnetism interacts too strongly with the surrounding environment – or even disappears. To make sure nothing interferes with the measurements, we work under ultrahigh vacuum – that is, in an extremely clean environment free of airborne particles – and at extremely low temperatures.”

Targeted support for an outstanding researcher

With Laëtitia Farinacci, the newly established Edna Carter Professorship has been filled by a young researcher with a strong international profile. The professorship is designed to provide targeted support for outstanding women scientists and to increase the proportion of women in STEM subjects. It is named after the American physicist Edna Carter (1872–1963), who earned her doctorate in Würzburg in 1906 as the first female doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy, under the supervision of Wilhelm Wien, who later won the Nobel Prize.

Farinacci strengthens the research team at the Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat, which investigates complex quantum matter with a focus on topology, dynamics, and new materials. Her work is an ideal fit for these research areas, as it sheds light on key mechanisms at the atomic level while opening up new perspectives for applications based on the atom-by-atom design of materials.

Laëtitia Farinacci studied at École polytechnique in Paris and earned her PhD at Freie Universität Berlin with a dissertation on magnetic molecules on a superconductor. She then conducted research on the dynamics of atomic spins at TU Delft and, in 2024, began heading a junior research group at the University of Stuttgart. On January 1, 2026, she took up her junior professorship at JMU Würzburg. She is currently building up her research group in Würzburg. The new group still has openings for bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD students interested in this forward-looking area of research.

ctd.qmat

The Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat – Complexity, Topology and Dynamics in Quantum Matter – at the University of Würzburg and Technische Universität Dresden explores and develops novel quantum materials with tailored properties. Around 300 researchers from over 30 countries work at the interface of physics, chemistry, and materials science to lay the foundations for tomorrow’s technologies. In 2026, the cluster entered the second funding period of the German Excellence Strategy of the Federal and State Governments – with an expanded focus on the dynamics of quantum processes.