After studying physics at Munich’s Ludwig Maximilians University J. Barth received his doctorate in physical chemistry with G. Ertl at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society (Berlin, 1992). Hereafter he was an IBM Postdoctoral Fellow at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, and spent over a decade at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, where he received the venia legendi. Prior to his nomination as TUM full professor in 2007, he held a Canada Research Chair at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. At TUM he also has been serving as Dean since many years.
Research activities center on exploring physicochemical phenomena at interfaces and engineering molecular nanosystems.

Prof. Feng is a director of the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics and the head of the Chair of Molecular Functional Materials at Technische Universität Dresden. His current scientific interests include synthetic methodology for new-type of polymers, organic and polymer synthesis, interfacial chemistry, supramolecular chemistry of π-conjugated system, bottom-up synthesis of carbon nanostructures and graphene nanoribbons, organic 2D crystals including 2D (supramolecular) polymers, 2D conjugated polymers and 2D conjugated metal-organic frameworks for opto-electronics, spintronics, molecular quantum and computing devices, electrochemical exfoliation of 2D crystals, graphene and 2D materials for energy storage and conversion, new energy devices and technologies. He has published >750 research articles which have attracted >124000 citations with H-index of 173 (Google Scholar).

He has been awarded several prestigious prizes such as IUPAC Prize for Young Chemists (2009), European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant Award (2012), Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship Award (2013), ChemComm Emerging Investigator Lectureship (2014), Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC, 2014), Highly Cited Researcher (Thomson Reuters, 2014-2024), Small Young Innovator Award (2017), Hamburg Science Award (2017), EU-40 Materials Prize (2018), ERC Consolidator Grant Award (2018), ERC Synergy Grant Award (2024). He is an elected member of the European Academy of Sciences (2019), member of the Academia Europaea (2019), member of the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech, 2021), and member of the German Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina, 2024). He is an Advisory Board Member for Advanced Materials, Chemical Science, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Energy Storage Materials, Chemistry -An Asian Journal, Trends in Chemistry, etc. He is the Head of Graphene Center Dresden, and spokesperson for the DFG Collaborative Research Center for the Chemistry of Synthetic 2D Materials (2020-).

Adam S. Foster is a professor in the Department of Applied Physics at Aalto University in Finland, where he leads the Surfaces and Interfaces at the Nanoscale (SIN - www.aalto.fi/physics-sin) research group. His work focuses on atomistic and quantum mechanical simulations to explore surface and interface phenomena at the nanoscale, often in close collaboration with experimentalists. His research encompasses areas such as catalysis, solid-liquid interfaces, quantum materials, microelectronics, and molecular assembly, frequently integrating advanced scanning probe microscopy (SPM) techniques. In recent years, his group has been active in developing machine learning methods for SPM analysis and control.
He earned his master's degree in theoretical physics from Newcastle University in 1997 and completed his Ph.D. at University College London in 2000. Following a postdoctoral position at the Helsinki University of Technology, he became an Academy of Finland Senior Fellow in 2004. He was appointed professor at Tampere University of Technology in 2009 and joined Aalto University in 2012. Additionally, he serves as a research professor at Kanazawa University in Japan, contributing to the Nano Life Science Institute (NanoLSI), where he applies computational physics to model complex scanning probe images, including those of biological systems.

Prof. Xuefeng Guo

Boya Distinguished Professor of Peking University, Changjiang Distinguished Professor of the Ministry of Education, and National Outstanding Young Scholar. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Beijing Normal University in 2001, and his Ph.D. from the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2004. Then, he carried out his postdoctoral research at Columbia University in 2004~2007 and started his independent career at Peking University in 2008. He has been engaged in the research of molecular materials and devices for over two decades, developed a breakthrough method for the preparation of stable single-molecule devices, constructed the world's first stable and controllable single-molecule electrical switch, developed a universal single-molecule electrical spectroscopy, and opened up new fields of single-molecule science and technology. He has published more than 275 SCI papers (IF>10,150 papers), including 2 Science, which have attracted wide attention from science and industry and have been highlighted more than 50 times in different forms by journals and media such as Scientific American, Nature, and Science. He has owned or applied for more than 50 international and domestic patents, published 4 books, and won the National 100 Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award, the first prize of the Natural Science Award of the Ministry of Education, the first prize of the Beijing Natural Science Award, the Top Ten Scientific and Technological Advances of Chinese Colleges and Universities, the Top Ten Advances in Chinese Science, and the first Science Exploration Award.

Leo Gross is a Principal Research Scientist at IBM Research Europe – Zurich. He studied physics at the Free University of Berlin, at Tulane University, New Orleans, at University of Münster and received his PhD in physics in at FU Berlin in 2005. He joined the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory in 2005 as a post doc in the group of Gerhard Meyer. Leo Gross pioneered atomic resolution of single molecules and charge-sensing on the atomic scale by atomic force microscopy (AFM). He develops and applies AFM and scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) for molecule identification, characterization and on-surface synthesis, and for studying charge transfer on the atomic scale.

Leo Gross received the Gerhard Ertl Young Investigator Award in 2010, the Feynman Prize for Nanotechnology in 2012 and the Silver Combustion Medal in 2020. He is fellow of the American Physical Society and the European Academy of Sciences. He received an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2016 and an ERC Synergy Grant, together with Jascha Repp, University of Regensburg and Diego Peña, University of Santiago de Compostela, in 2021.

Pu Huang, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the School of Physics, Nanjing University, he earned his Ph.D. from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2015. As a key member of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Basic Science Center and a recipient of the Young Top-Notch Talent Support Program of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, his research specializes in precision measurement of extremely weak forces and magnetic signals, developing magnetically levitated force-detection techniques for dark matter and dark energy studies, alongside concurrent work on gravitational sensing, passive navigation, and quantum sensing technologies based on diamond nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers. With over 40 publications in journals including Nature Physics, Nature Astronomy, and Physical Review Letters, he currently leads the NSFC Original Exploration Program Project, NSFC General Program Project et al,.

Tim Liedl works at the Department of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. He has co-pioneered the development of three-dimensional DNA origami, a now widely used method in nanotechnology. In his laboratory he has developed techniques for the nanometer-precise assembly of metallic nanoparticles, enabling advanced plasmonic architectures and applications. After establishing silicification protocols for DNA origami nanostructures, his team demonstrated the growth of single-crystal diamond lattices exhibiting structural color.  
The research of Tim Liedl is multi-disciplinary and exploratory positioned at the interface between physics, nanotechnology, material sciences and molecular biology. Among other topics, his group currently combines established lithography methods with the advantages of self-assembly and molecular addressability. The design of functional DNA hybrid materials and their characterization will help us to understand optical, mechanical and chemical interactions across multiple scales and across levels of organization.

Peter Lievens is Professor of Experimental Physics at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Faculty of Science, KU Leuven, Belgium. After his PhD at KU Leuven in nuclear physics (1991) he was Fellow at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland before returning to Belgium in 1993 to switch research topics towards nanoscience and experimental quantum physics as Postdoctoral Researcher of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO). He obtained tenure as Research Professor (BOF-ZAP) in 2001 and is Full Professor at KU Leuven since 2007. In 2008-2009 he was Vice Dean for Education of the Faculty of Science, where he got elected as Dean in September 2009, taking office until 2017. From August 2017 until July 2025 he was Vice Rector of International Policy, Interculturality and Alumni Policy at KU Leuven.

The focus of his research is on experimental investigations of physical and chemical properties of atomic clusters in the gas phase, individual nanoparticles on surfaces, cluster assembled thin films, and other low-dimensional systems. He has been granted research projects by the Research Foundation – Flanders, the KU Leuven Research Fund, and the European Framework progammes, including as coordinator of two Marie-Slodowska Curie Action Initial Training Networks. He published over 260 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and presented over 70 invited lectures at international conferences, workshops, and universities. He has been supervisor of 32 PhD students and over 20 postdoctoral fellows.

Prof. Richard E Palmer
Swansea University, Grove Nanomaterials Ltd & Nanjing University
https://swanseanano.uk/

Richard Palmer is Head of the Nanomaterials Lab at Swansea University, UK, in his hometown. He is also Founder and CEO of Grove Nanomaterials Limited and Visiting Professor, School of Physics, Nanjing University, China. His research on atomic clusters (nanoparticles) includes fundamental studies of atomic structure, metastability and dynamics as well as scale-up and applications in catalysis, energy and biomedicine. Other well-established research themes include atomic manipulation in STM and semiconductor nanofabrication.
Richard was awarded an MA and PhD at Cambridge University where he also held 1851, Clare College and Royal Society Fellowships. At Birmingham he founded the UK's first centre for nanoscience. Honours include: IOP Boys Medal; Honorary Doctorate from Hasselt University, Belgium; British Vacuum Council Yarwood Medal; EPSRC Senior Fellowship; and Fellowships of IOP, RSC, Learned Society of Wales. He has >500 publications, h = 68, and >20 families of patent applications. His work has led to a series of spin-out companies including Inanovate, Irresistible Materials and Nium as well as Grove. He is founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal Advances in Physics: X (Taylor and Francis) and Editor of the Elsevier Book Series ‘Frontiers of Nanoscience’.

Professor Wu have been worked in the institute of Solid State Physics, CAS as a team leader since 2010. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry in 2004 from the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He started atomically precise nanochemistry research as a post-doc with Prof. Rongchao Jin in 2008. At that time, the major challenge in the field is the facile acquirement of atomically monodisperse metal nanoparticles. They proposed “kinetic control and thermodynamic selection” strategy for the synthesis of monodisperse/narrow distributed metal nanoparticles, and further introduced preparative thin layer chromatography (PTLC) to separate muti-disperse metal nanoparticles. On the basis of synthesis advancement, they resolved the structure of Au₁₄₄(SR)₆₀—the Holy Grail of a large family of thiolated gold nanoparticles, extended the metal types of thiolated, precise metal nanoparticles from coinage metals to other metals (e.g. Pd), found the structure isomerization and the fourth crystallographic closest packing, revealed the charge transfer and delocalized electron donation photoluminescence mechanism, etc. In particular, he is well known as the discoverer of anti-galvanic reaction and the leader of current anti-galvanic reaction-related research.

Guoxin Xie is a Professor at Tsinghua University and concurrently serves as the Deputy Director of the State Key Laboratory of Tribology in Advanced Equipment in China. He has been awarded as a High-level Talent in China and has received support from the Excellent Youth Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China as well as the Beijing Outstanding Youth Fund.
His research interests encompass intelligent lubrication, atomic - level manufacturing, and superlubricity under harsh operating conditions.
In terms of professional affiliations, he is a member of the Chinese Society of Corrosion and Protection., the Deputy Director and Secretary-General of the Abrasion and Wear Committee, the Chairman of the Youth Committee of the Chinese Tribology Institute, and a member of both the Space Machinery Society and the Mechanical Transmission Society.
Moreover, he contributes to academic publishing as an Associate Editor or editorial board member for journals such as "Friction", "Applied Mechanics", and "China Surface Engineering".
Professor Xie has secured over 30 scientific research projects and published more than 130 scientific papers. His academic achievements have been recognized with numerous awards, including two First-class Prizes and two Second-class Prizes of Natural Sciences from the Chinese Ministry of Education, the Ragnar Holm Award from Sweden, and the National Outstanding Doctoral Dissertations Award of China. Additionally, he has chaired several academic conferences.

Yongsoo Yang is a researcher in the Department of Physics at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). He earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Michigan, where he focused on synchrotron X-ray scattering to investigate atomic structures at surfaces and interfaces in oxide systems. During his postdoctoral research at UCLA, he expanded into electron optics and pioneered atomic electron tomography, a technique enabling three-dimensional structural determination of nanomaterials at the single-atom level. At KAIST, his research centers on advancing multi-dimensional electron imaging, with particular emphasis on precise 3D mapping of atomic arrangements at surfaces and interfaces, and the atomic-scale characterization of complex topological order.

Jihan Zhou is an tenure-tracked assistant professor and Principal Investigator of Physical Chemistry in College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University. He received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry and his PhD degree in polymer chemistry and physics from Peking University, in 2009 and 2014, respectively. He completed postdoctoral research at UCLA, performing the first four-dimensional atomic electron tomography experiment on capturing early-stage nucleation.
His current research interests entail using and developing advanced electron microscopy, particularly atomic resolution electron tomography, to probe the three-dimensional (3D) atomic structure of interfaces and their dynamics and to solve traditionally intractable problems in physics, chemistry, materials science and nanoscience. He has published more than 60 papers in top-tier journals including such as Nature (2), Science (1), Nat. Mater. (3), Nat. Catal. (1), Nat. Commun. (3), JACS (1).