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Gerd K. Binnig studied physics at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1978 with a dissertation on superconductivity. Since 1978, he has been a research staff member of the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, interrupted by a sabbatical at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose (1985/86) and a guest professorship at Stanford University (1985-88). From 1987 to 1995, he headed an IBM physics group at the University of Munich, from which he received an honorary professorship in 1987. His main fields of activity during that time were scanning tunneling microscopy and atomic force microscopy.
For the development of the scanning tunneling microscope, which he invented together with Heinrich Rohrer, he received numerous awards, including the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. The scanning tunneling microscope, and the atomic force microscope that was invented later, made it possible to image and study structures and processes on the atomic scale. These instruments allow scientists to investigate phenomena of the smallest dimensions and they play a key role in nanoscience and nanotechnology.
Gerd K. Binnig's present fields of research include micro- and nanosystem techniques and the theory of "Fractal Darwinism," which he developed to describe complex systems.
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