Dr. Flemming Besenbacher is a full Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the Faculty of Science, Aarhus University, Denmark. He received his doctoral degree in Natural Sciences from Aarhus University. He is director and founder of the Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center and head of the graduate school.
Dr. Besenbacher is a member of the Board of Directors of the Carlsberg Foundation, the Carlsberg Breweries A/S, and of the Tuborg Foundation. He was vice-director of the center of excellence Center for Atomic-scale Materials Physics (1993-2003) sponsored by the Danish National Research Foundation. From 2009 he acts as Director of the Sino-Danish Center of Excellence “Center for Molecular Nanostructures on Surfaces”.
He is a member of numerous prestigious Danish and international academies/societies/committees, (e.g., the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, The Danish Academy of Technical Sciences, the US Materials Research Society, American Vacuum Society, Institute of Physics, Institute of Nanotechnology, editorial and advisory boards, he sits on the Fachbeirat at the Max-Planck Institute for Solid State Research). Via his membership of the Danish Natural Science Research Council, he has served as a Danish representative on several EU committees. He acts as referee for top-ranked journals within his field, and has since 1990 given more than 150 invited talks at international conferences and over 70 talks at research institutions and universities world-wide. He has published more than 400 papers in international journals and several in high-impact journals such as Nature, Science, Phys. Rev. Lett., and Angew. Chem.
Dr. Besenbacher is the recipient of many awards. in 2008 from Huazhong Normal University (China), Jilin University (China) and Zhejiang University of Technology (China). In 2009 he was elected Honorary Fellow of the Chinese Chemical Society, the American Vacuum Society, and the Materials Research Society and awarded an Honorary Einstein Professorship from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
And in 2007 he was knighted by the Queen of Denmark and awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog.
His current research activities include the development and use of scanning probe microscopies and a variety of other surface-sensitive techniques for the study of i) clean and adsorbate-covered surfaces, ii) synthesis and characterization of nanostructures on surfaces, iii) dynamic phenomena on surface by fast-scanning STM, iv) self-assembled molecular nanostructures, v) biomolecules and self-assembled nanoparticles under liquid conditions, and vi) biocompatible surfaces.
Honors:
- Recipient of the1995 NKT-prize from the Danish Physical Society for outstanding research within the area of scanning probe microscopy
- Danish Velux Award for outstanding achievements in natural and technical science, especially in the area of nanoscience
- Grundfos award, 2006
- Awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa from Henan University and Tianjin University (China), 2007
- Recipient of one of the prestigious ERC advanced research grants from the European Research Council, 2008
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