Noh Tae-won (; born August 4, 1957) is a South Korean physicist and director of the Center for Correlated Electron Systems (CCES) in the

Institute for Basic Science The Institute for Basic Science (IBS; ) is a Korean government-funded research institute that conducts basic science research and relevant pure basic research. Comprising approximately 30 research centers with more than 60 research groups ac ...

(IBS) at

Seoul National University Seoul National University (SNU; ) is a public university, public research university in Seoul, South Korea. It is one of the SKY (universities), SKY universities and a part of the Flagship Korean National Universities. The university's main c ...

(SNU). He has published more 400 papers and been cited 15,000 times. He is a member of the

Materials Research Society The Materials Research Society (MRS) is a non-profit, professional organization for materials researchers, scientists and engineers. Established in 1973, MRS is a member-driven organization of approximately 13,000 materials researchers from academi ...

, Korean Optical Society, Korean Crystallographic Society, and Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies and been on several editorial boards for journals. In 2017, he became president of the Korean Dielectrics Society. In 2024, he became the 9th president of the

Korea Institute for Advanced Study Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically divided at or near the 38th parallel between North Korea (Demo ...

Education

Noh graduated from Kyunggi High School in

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

, South Korea, in 1976 and received his B.Sc. (1982) in

Physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

from Seoul National University. Supervised by Dr. James R. Gaine, he obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

in 1984 and 1986, respectively.

Career

Noh conducted postdoctoral research in Dr. Albert John Sievers' group at

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

until 1989. During that period, he studied the optical properties of high-Tc superconductors, especially copper oxide. In August 1989, he joined the faculty of the Department of Physics at Seoul National University starting as an assistant professor before becoming an associate and later full professor. He was the director of the Research Center for Oxide Electronics at SNU from 2000. With funding from the Institute for Basic Science, he established the Center for Correlated Electron Systems at Seoul National University in 2012. The research center searches for new emerging phenomena at the interfaces of strongly correlated electron systems, such as oxides. He became an Endowed-Chair Professor at SNU in 2017. In 2019, the Center for Correlated Electron Systems and the Institute for Solid State Physics (ISSP) of the

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

opened a joint research laboratory at Seoul National University. Noh performs research in

condensed matter physics Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid State of matter, phases, that arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms and elec ...

. His research has focused on

transition metal oxides An oxide () is a chemical compound containing at least one oxygen atom and one other element in its chemical formula. "Oxide" itself is the dianion (anion bearing a net charge of −2) of oxygen, an O2− ion with oxygen in the oxidation state o ...

but has extended to other strongly correlated electron systems. His research interests include the growth of oxide thin films and artificial

heterostructure A heterojunction is an interface between two layers or regions of dissimilar semiconductors. These semiconducting materials have unequal band gaps as opposed to a homojunction. It is often advantageous to engineer the electronic energy bands in m ...

s, emerging phenomena in oxide surfaces and interfaces, the metal-insulator transition and orbital physics in transition metal oxides, the optical properties of numerous solids, and the physics of oxide devices such as ferroelectric random access memory ( FeRAM), resistance RAM ( RRAM), and spintronic devices. He has worked on novel nanoscale physical phenomena, especially in informational devices such as FeRAMs and RRAMs. He elucidated the physical mechanism of the fatigue problem in FeRAMs. He also addressed the critical thickness of ultrathin films where they lose

ferroelectricity In physics and materials science, ferroelectricity is a characteristic of certain materials that have a spontaneous electric polarization that can be reversed by the application of an external electric field. All ferroelectrics are also piezoel ...

. Additionally, he sought to explain resistance-switching phenomena, which are the basis of RRAM. Recently, he developed a new percolation model, called the "random circuit-breaker network model", which can explain reversible switching phenomena. He also discovered a novel quantum state of the correlated electron system in iridates that has attracted the interest of many researchers. He investigated the Mott physics of Sr2IrO4, which has a Mott insulator phase in the Jeff = 1/2 state. In the

Korean Physical Society The Korean Physical Society is a non-profit scientific society created to provide a forum for academic exchange among scholars and researchers in the field of Physics. The organization, was founded in Busan in 1952 during the Korean War. In 2020 ...

(KPS), he has served as treasurer (FY 1999–2000), executive officer (FY 2003–04), and vice president (FY 2009–12). He served as a council member trustee of the Association of Asia and Pacific Physical Societies from 2011 – 2013, is on the board of trustees at the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics, and the International Advisory Board of the Asian Meeting on Ferroelectricity. In 2014, he became a member of the International Union of Physics and Applied Physics. He has served on the editorial boards of several international journals, including Applied Physics Letter, and as Editor-in-chief of Current Applied Physics.

Awards and honors

*2022: Order of Science and Technology Merit *2000: Scientist of the Month Award (

National Research Foundation of Korea The National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF; ) is a research institute for Korean studies. It was established in 2009 through a merger between the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF; ), Korea Research Foundation (KRF; ; establ ...

) *2000: Award for Outstanding Paper (Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies) *2000: Research Award (College of Natural Science, Seoul National University) *2003: Ikeda Award (Ikeda Memorial Foundation, Japan) *2003: Korea Science Award (

) *2006: Scopus Citation Award (

Elsevier Elsevier ( ) is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell (journal), Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, ...

) *2009: Kyung-Ahm Prize (Kyung-Ahm Education & Culture Foundation) *2010: National Scientist of the Republic of Korea ( Ministry of Education, Science and Technology) *2011: Korean Best Scientist and Engineer Award ( Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies) *2014: Creative Leading Scientist Grant (Seoul National University) *2019: Sung-Bong Prize (

)

Conferences

He has also helped to organize numerous international conferences as a member of international advisory or program committees. Noh was Chair of the 5th Korea–Japan Conference on Ferroelectricity (KJC-FE5, 2004), the International Workshop on Oxide Electronics (WOE-2007), and the Joint Conference of the Asian Meeting on Ferroelectricity and the Asian Meeting on Electroceramics (AMF-AMEC-2010). He has also severed on the International Advisory or Program Committees of over 40 other international conferences. He has given over 100 invited talks at international conferences. He has also delivered plenary talks at international conferences, including IMF-11 (2005, Brazil), JKC-FE6 (2006, Japan), AAPC-11 (2010, China), KPS (2011, Busan), and AMEC (2012, Malaysia).

References

External links