Richard D. Schaller

Dr. Richard Schaller is deputy director of the Nanoscience and Technology (NST) division and the Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM) at Argonne National Laboratory. He is a chemist whose research focuses on the optical properties and ultrafast dynamics of semiconductor nanomaterials and other nanoscale systems.

Schaller uses ultrafast spectroscopy and advanced microscopy to investigate how materials interact with light and how energy, charge and excitations move through nanoscale structures. His research explores light-matter interactions, quantum sensing and the design of nanomaterials with potential applications in energy conversion, optoelectronics and quantum information science.

Before becoming deputy director, Schaller led CNM’s Nanophotonics and Biofunctional Structures group, which studies light-matter interactions in nanomaterials and develops nanostructures for applications in areas including energy conversion, biosensing and quantum information science.

Schaller joined Argonne in 2010 as a staff scientist. Previously, he spent eight years at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he co-led the nanophotonics thrust at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies. He also holds a joint appointment as a professor of chemistry at Northwestern University.

Schaller earned a doctorate in physical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2002 and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry from Northwestern University in 1997. In 2026, he was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in recognition of his contributions to physics.