Professor Je-Geun Park of Seoul National University has successfully led the establishment of KOMQUEST (Korea Max Planck Quantum Materials Centre), Asia’s first Max Planck international research center in quantum materials. Officially approved by the Max Planck Society in Germany, KOMQUEST is a ten-year collaboration launching in 2025 between Seoul National University, the Max Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics (Halle: Prof. S Parkin), ETH Zürich, POSTECH, and Ewha Womans University (IBS-QNS). The budget is 800 million KRW (0.5 million euros per year) over 10 years (2025–2035)

At SNU, the core research team includes Professors Ki-Hoon Kim, Min-Gu Kang (Physics), and Mi-Young Kim, Chul-Sung Hwang, Sang-Kook Kim (Materials Engineering). KOMQUEST will focus on cutting-edge research in 2D magnetic van der Waals materials, chiral magnetism, and quantum entanglement, advancing the next generation of quantum devices and spintronics. Professor Park, a pioneer of magnetic van der Waals research, will lead SNU’s role as the Asian hub of this international initiative.

Link: https://sites.google.com/view/vdw-magnetism-origin/home