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Stephan Roche

Stephan Roche

Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia

Engineering Sciences

ICREA Prof. Stephan Roche is working at the Catalan Institute of Nanosciences and Nanotechnology-ICN2. He leads the "Theoretical & Computational Nanoscience" group which focuses on physics of Topological Quantum Matter (graphene & topological insulators,...) and 2D materials-based van der Waals heterostructures. He pioneered the development of linear scaling quantum transport approaches enabling simulations of billion atoms-scale disordered models.  He studied Theoretical Physics at ENS, got PhD (1996) at Grenoble University (France); worked in Japan, Spain & Germany; appointed as assistant Prof. in 2000, CEA Researcher in 2004 and ICREA in 2009. Award: Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany). 


Research interests

S. Roche theoretically explores quantum transport inTopological Quantum Matter including graphene & topological insulators, and 2D materials-based van der Waals heterostructures. Main interests include (i) quantum interferences &  decoherence mechanisms (ii) spin dynamics & spin-torque (iii) topological physics (iv) thermal transport  (v) quantum devices simulation (vi) quantum computing.

Selected publications

– Fan Z, Garcia JH, Cummings AW, Barrios-Vargas JE, Panhans M, Harju A, Ortmann F & Roche S 2021 ´ Linear scaling quantum transport methodologies´ Physics Reports 903, 7 Pages 1-69.

– Perez-Piskunow P & Roche S 2021 ´Hinge Spin Polarization in Magnetic Topological Insulators Revealed by Resistance Switch´, Physical Review Letters 126, 167701.

– Block A, Principi A, Hesp NCH,  Cummings AW, Liebel M, Watanabe K, Taniguchi T, Roche S, Koppens F, van Hulst NF, Tielrooij KJ 2021, ‘Observation of giant and tunable thermal diffusivity of a Dirac fluid at room temperature‘, Nature Nanotechnology 16, pages 1195–1200.

– Sierra JF, Fabian J, Kawakami RK, Roche S and Valenzuela SO 2021, ´Van der Waals heterostructures for spintronics and opto-spintronics´ Nature Nanotechnology  6, 856–868.

– Vila M, Garcia JH & Roche S 2021, ´Valley-polarized quantum anomalous Hall phase in bilayer graphene with layer-dependent proximity effects´ Phys. Rev. B 104, L161113.

– Antidormi A, Colombo L & Roche S 2021, ´Thermal transport in amorphous graphene with varying structural quality´, 2D Mater. 8, 015028.

– Giustino F, Bibes M, Lee J, Trier F, Valentí R, Winter SM, Son YW, Taillefer L, Heil C, Figueroa AI, Plaçais B, Wu QS, Yazyev O, Bakkers E, Nygård J, Forn-Díaz P, de Franceschi S, Foa Torres LEF, McIver J, Kumar A, Low T, Galceran R, Valenzuel SO, Costache MV, Manchon A, Kim EA, Schleder G, Fazzio A, Roche S 2021 ´The 2021 Quantum Materials Roadmap´  J. Phys. Mater. 3, 042006.

– Wen C, Li X, Zanotti, T Puglisi F, Shi Y, Saiz F, Antidormi A,  Roche S, Zheng W, Liang X, Hu J, Duhm S, Roldan J,  Wu T, Chen, Pop E,  Garrido B, Zhu K, Hui F & Lanza M 2021 ´Advanced Data Encryption ​using 2D Materials´ Advanced Materials, 2100185.


Selected research activities

Division leader of the Graphene Flagship and Workpackage leader (Spintronics)  DIV1 & WP2.

Edior in Chief of Journal of Physics Materials (IoP).

Launch of LSQUANT (www.lsquant.org) – initiative dedicated to promoting large-scale quantum transport methodologies.

ICREA Memoir 2021