Hans von Känel obtained his Ph.D. in natural sciences from the ETH in Zürich, Switzerland, in 1978. His major fields of study have been low-dimensional magnetism, liquid crystals, semiconductor photoelectro-chemistry, epitaxial interfaces and surfaces, scanning probe techniques, and epitaxial growth. He was a Post-doctoral Associate at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, from 1979 to 1981, and the leader of the semiconductor electrochemistry and Si heterostructures groups at the ETH in Zürich from 1981 to 2002, where he invented the technique of low-energy plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (LEPECVD).
从2002年到2007年，他是米兰理工大学的普通物理学教授。在此期间，他在位于科莫的L-NESS建立并领导了半导体异质和纳米结构实验室。L-NESS是米兰理工大学和米兰比可卡大学的一个联合研究中心，成立于2002年。2003-2010年，他是ETH分拆出来的公司EpiSpeed的首席技术官。他与人合作发表了350多篇科学论文和15项专利申请。
