Munich

Jan Hendrik Schön (right), who turned 32 in August, was truly the Wunderkind of German physics.

In a society where young scientists often struggle to establish themselves, Schön's extraordinarily successful track record gave him almost legendary status. And until doubts arose about the integrity of his work earlier this year, he was poised to return to his native land in glory — as the youngest ever co-director of one of the prestigious Max Planck Institutes.

Schön's meteoric career began at the University of Constance, where he studied physics as an undergraduate and then completed a PhD in 1997. In Constance he is remembered not just as a brilliant student, but as a self-effacing young man, well liked by colleagues, whose research was seen as diligent and solid.

His PhD topic was the development of semiconductor systems for use as solar cells. He tried to develop a junction between two copper selenide semiconducting materials that would convert light into electric current. He failed to build the junction — other groups later also failed to get the same system to work — but his well argued thesis won him a strong recommendation for a postdoctoral position at Bell Laboratories, supported by an 18-month grant from Germany's main grant agency, the DFG.

Schön impressed colleagues at Bell Labs, and was offered a permanent position. For a few months at the beginning of 2001 visa problems sent him back to Constance, where he continued working on his Bell Lab projects. It was a time of breathtaking productivity: Schön wrote a paper every eight days on average during 2001, according to the Beasley report.

Schön's overnight success prompted the Max Planck Society to create a co-directorship especially for him at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart. Eighteen months ago it initiated the lengthy Berufung process, a deliberation over a candidate's suitability that normally precedes a formal job offer.

“The procedure was, as usual, very careful and involved a lot of evaluators, none of whom raised objections,” says the institute's managing director, Martin Jansen. “During interviews, Schön came over as a very kind and impressive personality who presented his work very convincingly.”

Schön had signed no agreement with the Max Planck Society, but negotiations over his employment package had begun when suspicions about his work surfaced publicly. Negotiations were then put on ice, and Jansen has now recommended their cancellation.

Meanwhile, the DFG is studying the report's findings to see if the work that it supported involved misconduct. If so, says a spokeswoman, the DFG will immediately embark on its own inquiry. Sanctions for misuse of DFG funds range from a public warning to a demand for the return of grant funding.