Roderich Moessner to Receive Max Born Prize

Overview

Dresden physicist Roderich Moessner is to be awarded the 2026 Max Born Prize for his outstanding scientific contributions to physics. Professor Moessner is the director of the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden and is one of the 25 Principal Investigators of the Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat – Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter. His groundbreaking work on spin liquids, charge stripes in quantum Hall systems, and frustrated magnetism has provided fundamental insights into novel physical phenomena that have helped shape the field of topological solid-state physics worldwide. The Max Born Prize is jointly awarded by the British Institute of Physics and the German Physical Society.

Roderich Moessner’s research continues to uncover new realms of physical behavior. He is particularly known for his theoretical work on spin liquids, frustrated magnetism, and for his prediction of charge stripes in quantum Hall systems. More recently, he predicted discrete time crystals and verified them experimentally using Google’s Sycamore quantum computer.

Moessner studied at the University of Oxford, where he completed his doctorate in theoretical physics under John T. Chalker in 1997. After a period as a junior research fellow, he moved to Princeton University. From 2001 to 2006, he conducted research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) before returning to Oxford. In 2007, he was appointed director of the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden and has also served as an honorary professor at Technische Universität Dresden since 2008. He is one of the Principal Investigators of the Würzburg–Dresden Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat.

Established in 1973 in memory of Nobel laureate Max Born, the Max Born Prize honors outstanding and cutting-edge scientific contributions to physics. The award alternates annually between German and British researchers. Born, a German mathematician and physicist persecuted by the Nazi regime, took British citizenship in exile and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1954 for his contributions to quantum mechanics.

Roderich Moessner is the second Principal Investigator of ct.qmat to receive the Max Born Prize. In 2022, Professor Claudia Felser was honored for her international leadership in the design and discovery of new inorganic compounds – particularly Heusler compounds and other topological quantum materials.