Silke Bühler-Paschen

Bühler-Paschen studied physics at Graz University of Technology and earned her diploma in 1992.[1] In 1995 she earned her PhD with her thesis titled "Electron transport in polymer composites" at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.[2]

Bühler-Paschen worked as a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich between 1995 and 1998 and as a group leader at Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden starting in 1999, where she also became an assistant professor in 2003.[1][3] In 2005, Bühler-Paschen became the first female full professor of physics at TU Wien,[3] and she became chair of the institute for solid state physics in 2007.[4]

Bühler-Paschen served as visiting professor at Nagoya University in 2001/2002[5] and at Rice University in 2016/2017.[6] She served on the ERC Starting Grant peer review panel in Condensed Matter Physics in 2019.[7] Bühler-Paschen's research was funded by the European Research Council[8] and the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).[9] She studied complex metallic alloys within an EU-funded "Network of Excellence".[10][11] Bühler-Paschen is on the Low Temperature Section board of Heidelberg University's Condensed Matter Division,[12] as well as the board of European Forum Alpbach[13] and the advisory board of the low-temperature research institute of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities.[14] She was also on the European Physical Society's EPS Condensed Matter Board in 2019.[15]

Bühler-Paschen studies new materials, typically by growing high-quality single crystals, which are then characterized for their structure and composition, and whose physical properties are typically measured at low temperatures.[10] Bühler-Paschen's research focuses on strongly correlated and thermoelectric materials. She studies magnetism and superconductivity in heavy fermion systems, as well as materials exhibiting the thermoelectric effect.[16]

During her time in Dresden, Bühler-Paschen's research started to focus on materials with cage-like crystal structures called clathrates with respect to their potential applications as thermoelectrics.[3] Later, she discovered how the temperature-dependent rattling behavior of caged cerium atoms in such clathrates can stabilize the Kondo effect at unusually high temperatures,[17] as well as the first observed collapse of the Kondo effect due to three-dimensional quantum fluctuations.[18]

Bühler-Paschen contributed to the first identification of Weyl fermions in a strongly correlated Weyl-Kondo semimetal.[19] She realized the individual toggling of different electronic degrees of freedom in correlated electron systems.[20][21] Bühler-Paschen investigated metallic materials whose electrical resistance exhibits unusual behavior with varying temperatures, which is related to superconductivity and based on quantum-critical charge fluctuations.[22][23][24][25][26][27][28]

• 2009: ERC Advanced Grant[8]
• 2015: Fellow of the American Physical Society,[29][30] nominated by the Division of Condensed Matter Physics[31]

Bühler-Paschen grew up living in Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria. She practiced gymnastics between the ages of 8 to 18 and was discovered as a model at the age of 14.[4] She has three children and her husband is also a physicist.[5]

• "Univ. Prof. Dr. Silke Bühler-Paschen". Institute of Solid State Physics - TU Wien. Retrieved March 15, 2020.
• "Prof. Dr. Silke Bühler-Paschen". AcademiaNet. Retrieved March 15, 2020.
• "Austrian physicist Silke Bühler-Paschen studying solid state". YouTube. Science: It's a girl thing!. October 29, 2012. Retrieved March 15, 2020.
• "Heiße Spur nahe dem absoluten Temperatur-Nullpunkt" (PDF). Austrian Science Fund. Retrieved March 15, 2020.