Profile of a Scientist: Antje Rey

Photo by Britta Machoy

Who: Antje Rey

Location: IBM Research - Zurich

Nationality: Swiss

Something about me:
In my spare time I create and design jewelry, including rings and earrings from silver.

Focus: Molecular Electronics
“I’m inspired by the science. We are working at the edge of human knowledge, and the potential applications for modern society are boundless -- spanning from devices that can be powered by harvesting energy from the environment, to waterproof textiles. It also helps that I am an incredibly curious person by nature.”

Career Advice:
“Surround yourself with people you trust and that you can rely on. I am lucky to have found this at both IBM and ETH Zurich.

"Also, in addition to being curious, I am also the ultimate optimist. While it's not always possible to be optimistic, it is important to believe that even if something doesn’t find an application today, it may in five or 10 years from now. So don’t get discouraged, just think on a longer time scale.”

What's New:
Antje recently took first place in the Raith Micrograph Award competition. It recognizes interesting results and attractive nanostructures created using a Raith ion or electron beam lithography system. Her colleague actually submitted the image while she was on vacation, only finding out that she won upon returning to the lab.

As the winner, Antje has been invited to a conference in Japan this coming September to present her research.

Connect with Antje on LinkedIn.

The Winner: Molecular electronics is aiming at the use of functional molecules as building blocks for electronic circuits. With this image, our goal was to fabricate a structure which enables measurements of conductive organic molecules on a chip. In the image one can see the two gold nanowires as electrodes, but what cannot be seen is a small gap between them which measures 1-2 nanometers. We can perform measurements on molecules integrated into this gap to design nanosized devices.