Horizon Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship and Bryan R. Coles Prize 2025 for Jan Knapp
Congratulations and welcome to Jan Knapp, who has been awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship to work in the Physics of Quantum Matter Department on a project entitled "Ultra-low Temperature SQUID NMR of Strongly Correlated Electron Systems".
Jan obtained his Ph.D. at the Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL), supervised by Prof. John Saunders, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford in the group of Prof. J.C.S. Davis.
At RHUL he studied the electro-nuclear interplay in magnetism and unconventional superconductivity in the heavy fermion YbRh2Si2 at ultralow temperatures. His work led to the identification of an electro-nuclear spin density wave [1,2], which was later found to stabilize an odd-parity helical superconducting phase through the formation of a pair density wave [3].
During his fellowship, which started in April, Jan will build a PrNi5 stage to reach micro-Kelvin temperatures and a SQUID-based broadband nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer to study magnetism and unconventional superconductivity. In particular, he will investigate the putative quantum criticality and topological superconductivity in YbRh2Si2.
In recognition of his pioneering work [1], Jan will be awarded the Bryan R. Coles Prize 2025 at the SCES-2025 conference in Montreal this year.
[1] J. Knapp et al., Electronuclear transition into a spatially modulated magnetic state in YbRh2Si2. Phys. Rev. Lett., 130, 126802 (2023).
[2] J. Knapp et al., Precise calorimetry of small metal samples using noise thermometry. Jour. Low Temp. Phys., 217 (2024).
[3] L. Levitin et al., Odd-parity superconductivity underpinned by antiferromagnetism in heavy fermion metal YbRh 2Si2, arxiv.org/abs/2502.06420.
