Roberto Fornari

DVD players, mobile phones, lasers, solar cells, and computers – many products rely on tiny crystalline bodies to function. And nobody knows these crystals better than Professor Dr. Roberto Fornari, Director of the Leibniz Institute for Crystal Growth (IKZ) in Berlin’s FVB Research Network and professor at the Physics Institute of Humboldt Universität. 

Roberto Fornari has been working on crystal growth for almost 30 years. This involves the production of an ordered body via disordered phases such as melting, gassing and diluting. 

In 2003, Fornari, who originated from Italy, decided to move from Parma to Berlin to continue his work in crystals at the Leibniz Institute for Crystal Growth. At his offices in Adlershof, he now uses different methods to grow, process and characterize a number of crystalline materials together with over 100 colleagues. The current spectrum of materials ranges from traditional semiconductors, such as Si and Ge, to wide bandgap semiconductors, such as ZnO, GaN and AlN, and all the way to dielectric oxides with special piezoelectric and ferroelectric characteristics. 

“We are a center of expertise for all essential scientific and technical matters relating to the growth of volume crystals, layers and nanostructures“, explains Fornari. “The goal of our scientific activities at the IKZ is the development and investigation of crystal materials that can be used in areas such as electronic and optical components, radiation detectors and sensors, and in energy conversion.“

Good Contacts to Industry

Roberto Fornari especially values the good contacts to industry enjoyed by the Leibniz Institute for Crystal Growth in Berlin. “For example, we’re currently working closely together with the solar industry. We’re improving basic materials in an attempt to achieve a higher performance from solar cells.“ Fornari is also proud of the close contact to many middle-size companies from Berlin and Brandenburg. “We consider ourselves to be not only a scientific institute, but also a service center. We develop crystals, growth equipment and processes for our cooperation partners and clients from the field of business.“

The development of an original crystal-growth procedure was also the project that brought Fornari his greatest success so far in Berlin. In 2008, his institute – together with the Weierstraß Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochastik (WIAS), Steremat GmbH and Auteam GmbH – won the Berlin-Brandenburg Innovation Award with their product “KRISTMAG – Crystal Growth in the Traveling Magnetic Field“. 

The principle: Scientists use traveling magnetic fields to control the convection and transport of heat in the melt. This allows for the production of crystals – such as silicon for solar cells or Gallium arsenide for electronic applications – in a higher quality than ever before. The result: KRISTMAG makes a new type of growth device possible – one that generates better results while also being cost- and energy efficient. As Fornari notes: “The company Steremat took on our know-how and patents and is now working with them. For us, it’s the perfect intertwining of science and business.“

“There’s also constructive competition“

Fornari has long since been convinced of the merits of the research being performed in Berlin. “Adlershof is a very good location – most of all because of the outstanding concentration of scientific institutes and their excellent interconnectedness. And there’s even a degree of constructive competition between the institutes.“ What the scientist from Italy likes most about Berlin as a science location is the wide array of funding opportunities: “Berlin has excellent conditions for acquiring support for new ideas. Partners from industry are also very open to cooperating with science.“

Fornari is committed to Germany as his new home and workplace, noting “I like everything here. Well, except the weather.“

You will also find Roberto Fornari in the Who's Who Berlin: Capital of Science