James Kazimierz Gimzewski FRS FREngFInstP is a Scottish physicist of Polish descent who pioneered research on electrical contacts with single atoms and molecules and light emission using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM).
Gimzewski was born in Glasgow to Polish World War II war veteran Edmund Gimzewski. He earned his undergraduate degree in 1974 and PhD in 1977 from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. Until February 2001, he was a group leader at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, where he was involved in nanoscale science since 1983. Currently, he is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA, where he conducts research and advises graduate students in his PicoLab. He is also the faculty director of the Nano & Pico Characterization core lab at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.
He pioneered research on electrical contact with single atoms and molecules, light emission and molecular imaging using STM. His accomplishments include the first STM-manipulation of molecules at room temperature, the realization of molecular abacus using buckyballs (C60), the discovery of single molecule rotors and the development of nanomechanical sensors based on nanotechnology, which explore the ultimate limits of sensitivity and measurement.