ct.qmat Celebrates Five Among World’s Most Cited Researchers

Overview

Achieving a high citation count globally is a significant benchmark in research excellence. At ct.qmat, affiliated with the universities JMU Würzburg and TU Dresden, five esteemed members have been named among the world’s most frequently cited scientists, solidifying the cluster’s status as a forefront leader in global topological and quantum matter research.

 

The Highly Cited Researchers 2025 list published by Clarivate in November features three of ct.qmat’s principal investigators—Alexey Chernikov, Claudia Felser, and Ronny Thomale —along with external members Mordechai Segev and Alexander Szameit, showcasing their profound impact on the scientific community. The annual list compiles authors whose publications have drawn an outstanding number of citations over the past decade, as indexed by the Web of Science platform. This year’s roster includes over 7,000 distinguished figures in one or more of twenty fields.

 

Affirmation of Research Excellence

“This recognition not only validates the exceptional quality of our team, but also highlights the outstanding level of quantum research undertaken at ct.qmat,” stated Ralph Claessen, ct.qmat’s Würzburg spokesperson. “It’s all the more remarkable that three of ct.qmat’s 25 principal investigators, i.e. 12%, are on the list! This clearly strengthens our standing in the global scientific community.”

 

ct.qmat’s Citation Champions

 

Principal Investigators 

 

Alexey Chernikov, professor of Ultrafast Microscopy and Photonics established by the Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat – Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter at TU Dresden, pursues the goal to make ultrafast quantum mechanical quasiparticles visible in atomically thin nanocrystals.

 

Claudia Felser, director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden, advances the discovery of new inorganic materials, notably Heusler compounds and other topological quantum materials.

 

Ronny Thomale, Chair of Theoretical Physics I at JMU Würzburg, specializes in strongly correlated electron states and is actively advancing research on topological metamaterials.

 

External Members

 

Mordechai Segev, Faculty of Physics, Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Technion – Israel, Institute of Technology Haifa, is an external member of ct.qmat and recognized as father of topological photonics.

 

Alexander Szameit, an external member of ct.qmat, works at the University of Rostock’s Institute of Physics, where he conducts innovation in optical quantum technologies through his work on light propagation in functionalized media.

 

The Highly Cited Researchers list, curated annually by Clarivate’s Institute for Scientific Information, features 7,131 top-tier researchers from 60 countries and regions. The selection process, based on citation data from the Web of Science Core Collection and thorough qualitative assessments by Clarivate’s ISI team, covers publications from 2014 to 2024. The researchers named have each written several papers ranking in the top percentile for citations in their year of publication, underscoring their influential roles in advancing scientific thought.