His undergraduate studies were in mathematics at Birkbeck College. His further studies in physics were very much in the 'old school' European style at the time and he variously studied under Walter Heitler, Wolfgang Pauli, and Herbert Fröhlich.

In 1954, he became an ICI Fellow and lecturer at the University of Liverpool. Then in 1965, he became a Reader in Physics at University College London until his early death at the age of 55. As well as his work on polarons he is remembered for his insightful revisions of Walter Heitler's book Quantum Theory of Radiation and Nevill Francis Mott & Harrie Massey's book The Theory of Atomic Collisions.

• Polaron
• Edwin Power
• Walter Heitler

• E. A. Power and F. F. Heymann, "Sigurd Zienau," (Obituary) Nature, Vol. 266, pp. 201–202, 1977.

• Sigurd Zienau at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• Zienau letter to Needham
• History of Physics at UCL with reference to Zienau
• History of Physics at UCL with reference to Zienau, Osborn & Cordero