Nicolas GrandjeanNicolas Grandjean received a PhD degree in physics from the University ofNice Sophia Antipolis in 1994 and shortly thereafter joined the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) as a permanent staff member. In 2004, he was appointed tenure-track assistant professor at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) where he created the Laboratory for advanced semiconductors for photonics and electronics. He was promoted to full professor in 2009. He was the director of the Institute of Condensed Matter Physics from 2012 to 2016 and then moved to the University of California at Santa Barbara where he spent 6 months as a visiting professor. Since 2018, he is the head of the School of Physics at the EPFL. He was awarded the Sandoz Family Foundation Grant for Academic Promotion, received the “Nakamura Lecturer” Award in 2010, the "Quantum Devices Award” at the 2017 Compound Semiconductor Week, and “2016 best teacher” award from the EPFL Physics School. His research interests are focused on the physics of nanostructures and III-V nitride semiconductor quantum photonics.
Tobias KippenbergTobias J. Kippenberg is Full Professor of Physics at EPFL and leads the Laboratory of Photonics and Quantum Measurement. He obtained his BA at the RWTH Aachen, and MA and PhD at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech in Pasadena, USA). From 2005- 2009 he lead an Independent Research Group at the MPI of Quantum Optics, and is at EPFL since. His research interest are the Science and Applications of ultra high Q microcavities; in particular with his research group he discovered chip-scale Kerr frequency comb generation (Nature 2007, Science 2011) and observed radiation pressure backaction effects in microresonators that now developed into the field of cavity optomechanics (Science 2008). Tobias Kippenberg is alumni of the “Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes”. For his invention of “chip-scale frequency combs” he received he Helmholtz Price for Metrology (2009) and the EFTF Young Investigator Award (2010). For his research on cavity optomechanics, he received the EPS Fresnel Prize (2009). In addition he is recipient of the ICO Prize in Optics (2014), the Swiss National Latsis award (2015), the German Wilhelm Klung Award (2015) and ZEISS Research Award (2018). He is fellow of the APS and OSA, and listed since 2014 in the Thomas Reuters highlycited.com in the domain of Physics. EDUCATION 2009: Habilitation (Venia Legendi) in Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München 2004: PhD, California Institute of Technology (Advisor Professor Kerry Vahala) 2000: Master of Science (Applied Physics), California Institute of Technology 1998: BA in Physics, Technical University of Aachen (RWTH), Germany 1998: BA in Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Aachen (RWTH), Germany ACADEMIC POSITIONS 2013 - present: Full Professor EPFL 2010 - 2012: Associate Professor EPFL 2008 - 2010: Tenure Track Assistant Professor, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne 2007 - present: Marie Curie Excellent Grant Team Leader, Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (Division of Prof.T.W. Hänsch) 2005 - present: Leader of an Independent Junior Research Group, Max Planck Institute 2005- present: Habilitant (Prof. Hänsch) Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) 2005-2006: Postdoctoral Scholar, Center for the Physics of Information, California Institute of Technology 2000-2004: Graduate Research Assistant, California Institute of Technology PRIZES AND HONORS: ZEISS Research Award 2018 Fellow of the APS 2016 Klung-Wilhelmy Prize 2015 Swiss Latsis Prize 2014 Selected Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher in Physics, 2014/2015 ICO Prize, 2013 EFTF Young Scientist Award (for "invention of microresonator based frequency combs") 2010 Fresnel Prize of the European Physical Society (for contributions to Optomechanics) 2009 Helmholtz Prize for Metrology (for invention of the monolithic frequency comb) 2009 1st Prize winner of the EU Contest for Young Scientists, Helsinki, Finland. Sept. 1996 Jugend forscht 1st Physics Prize at the German National Science Contest May 1996 FELLOWSHIPS Fellow of the German National Merit Foundation ("Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes") 1998-2002 Member of the Daimler-Chysler-Fellowship-Organization 1998-2002 Dr. Ulderup Fellowship 1999-2000 RESEARCH INTERESTS Experimental and theoretical research in photonics, notably high Q optical microcavities and their use in cavity quantum optomechanics and frequency metrology PUBLICATIONS AND OFTEN CITED METRICS*: >70 Publications in peer reviewed journals Researcher Google Profile: http://scholar.google.ch/citations?user=PRCbG2kAAAAJ&hl=en h-Index 54 (Google scholar H: 64, >25,000 citations) Thomson Reuters/Claravite List of Highly Cited Researchers (2014,2015,2016,2017) careful in its use: https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201411/backpage.cfm KEY PUBLICATIONS AND REVIEWS: A. Ghadimi, et al. Elastic strain engineering for ultra high Q nanomechanical oscillators Science, (2018) Trocha, et al. Ultrafast distance measurements using soliton microresonator frequency combs Science, Vol. 359 (2018) [joint work with C. Koos] Pablo-Marin et al. Microresonator-based solitons for massively parallel coherent optical communications Nature (2017) [joint work with C. Koos] V. Brasch, et al. Photonic chip-based optical frequency comb using soliton Cherenkov radiation. Science, vol. 351, num. 6271 (2015) Aspelmeyer, M., Kippenberg, T. J. & Marquardt, F. Cavity optomechanics. Reviews of Modern Physics 86, 1391-1452, (2014) Wilson, D. J. et al. Measurement and control of a mechanical oscillator at its thermal decoherence rate. Nature (2014). Verhagen, E., Deleglise, S., Weis, S., Schliesser, A. & Kippenberg, T. J. Quantum-coherent coupling of a mechanical oscillator to an optical cavity mode. Nature 482, 63-67 (2012). Kippenberg, T. J., Holzwarth, R. & Diddams, S. A. Microresonator-based optical frequency combs. Science 332, 555-559, (2011). Weis, S. et al. Optomechanically induced transparency. Science 330, 1520-1523 (2010). Kippenberg, T. J. & Vahala, K. J. Cavity optomechanics: back-action at the mesoscale. Science 321, 1172-1176, (2008). Del'Haye, P. et al. Optical frequency comb generation from a monolithic microresonator. Nature (2007) Schliesser, A., DelHaye, P., Nooshi, N., Vahala, K. & Kippenberg, T. Radiation Pressure Cooling of a Micromechanical Oscillator Using Dynamical Backaction. Physical Review Letters 97, (2006). Luc ThévenazLuc Thévenaz received in 1982 the M.Sc. degree in astrophysics from the Observatory of Geneva, Switzerland, and in 1988 the Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He developed at this moment his field of expertise, i.e. fibre optics. In 1988 he joined the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne (EPFL) where he currently leads a research group involved in photonics, namely fibre optics and optical sensing. Research topics include Brillouin-scattering fibre sensors, nonlinear fibre optics, slow & fast light and laser spectroscopy in gases. His main achievements are: - the invention of a novel configuration for distributed Brillouin fibre sensing based on a single laser source, resulting in a high intrinsic stability making for the first time field measurements possible, - the development of a photoacoustic gas trace sensor using a near infra-red semiconductor laser, detecting a gas concentration at the ppb level, - the first experimental demonstration of optically-controlled slow & fast light in optical fibres, realized at ambient temperature and operating at any wavelength since based on stimulated Brillouin scattering. The first negative group velocity of light was also realized in optical fibres using this approach. In 1991, he visited the PUC University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where he worked on the generation of picosecond pulses in semiconductor lasers. In 1991-1992 he stayed at Stanford University, USA, where he participated in the development of a Brillouin laser gyroscope. He joined in 1998 the company Orbisphere Laboratories SA in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, as Expert Scientist to develop gas trace sensors based on photoacoustic laser spectroscopy. In 1998 and 1999 he visited the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejon, South Korea, where he worked on fibre laser current sensors. In 2000 he co-founded the spin-off company Omnisens that is developing and commercializing advanced photonic instrumentation. In 2007 he visited Tel Aviv University where he studied the all-optical control of polarization in optical fibres. During winter 2010 he stayed at the University of Sydney where he studied applications of stimulated Brillouin scattering in chalcogenide waveguides. In 2014 he stayed at the Polytechnic University of Valencia where he worked on microwave applications of stimulated Brillouin scattering. He was member of the Consortium in the FP7 European Project GOSPEL "Governing the speed of light", was Chairman of the European COST Action 299 "FIDES: Optical Fibres for New Challenges Facing the Information Society" and is author or co-author of some 480 publications and 12 patents. He is now Coordinator of the H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks FINESSE (FIbre NErve Systems for Sensing). He is co-Executive Editor-in-Chief of the journal "Nature Light: Science & Applications" and is Member of the Editorial Board (Associate Editor) for the journal "APL Photonics" & "Laser & Photonics Reviews". He is also Fellow of both the IEEE and the Optical Society (OSA).
Benoît Marie Joseph DeveaudBenoit Deveaud is now Research Director at Ecole Polytechnique in Palaiseau (France)
Benoît Deveaud was born in France in 1952. In 1971, he enters Ecole Polytechnique in Paris where he specializes in physics. In 1974, he joins the National Center for research in Telecommunications (CNET).
He undertakes at the same time studies on the main impurity centers in III-V semiconductors, and continues his studies in physics by preparing a diploma in solid state physics in Rennes. In 1984, he defends his PhD thesis at the University of Grenoble, under the supervision of Gérard Martinez. Meanwhile, his team gets interested in semiconductor microstructures and launches studies on the structural and optical properties of superlattices based on gallium arsenide. These studies highlight for example vertical transport in superlattices as well as the quantification of excitonic energies in a quantum well.
In 1986 he joins the team of Daniel Chemla in Bell Laboratories (Holmdel, USA) and takes part in the development of the first luminescence set-up having a temporal resolution better than 1 picosecond. He studies then ultrafast processes in quantum wells.
Returning to France in 1988, at CNET, he coaches a laboratory of high-speed studies, interested in the optical and electronic properties of semiconductor materials.
Appointed professor in Physics at EPFL in October 1993, his research team studies the physics of ultrafast processes in semiconductor micro and nanostructures and in devices that use them. He has been the Director the Institute of Micro and Optoelectronics since 1998, then of the Institute of Quantum Photonic and Electronics from 2003 to 2008.
His team takes an active part in the "Quantum Photonics" National Center of Competence in Research, of which he was the Deputy Director from 2001 to 2005 then the Director from July 2005 till the end of the NCCR in 2013
From 2008 till 2014 he has been Dean for Research at EPFL and president of the research commission.
Starting in 2014, he has been head of Physics, till his departure from EPFL in 2017.
He has been a divisional editor of Physical Review Letters from 2001 to 2007.
Raphaël ButtéRaphaël Butté was born in Paris, France, in 1973. He received the PhD degree from the University Claude Bernard, Lyon, France, in 2000 for his research on the structural and optoelectronic properties of hydrogenated nanostructured silicon thin films with potential applications for photovoltaics and thin film transistors. He then moved to the University of Sheffield (2000-2003), UK, to work as postdoctoral research associate in the group of Prof. Maurice S. Skolnick (Fellow of the Royal Society). His research shifted to the optical properties of III-V semiconductors with a main focus on the nonlinear optical properties of cavity polaritons occurring in GaAs-based microcavities driven under resonant optical excitation. In 2004, he moved to Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) as scientific collaborator in charge of optical spectroscopy at LASPE (http://laspe.epfl.ch/), a newly established laboratory directed by Prof. Nicolas Grandjean. In 2010, he became permanent member of staff (Scientific Collaborator and Lecturer). He was promoted to the position of Senior Scientist in 2016. His current research activity deals with planar waveguides, microdisks and photonic crystals made from III-nitride semiconductors. In particular, he is leading the activity focusing on: (i) the physics of exciton-polaritons in planar waveguides and (ii) high-β photonic crystal nanolasers. He is the author of 119 scientific articles published in peer-reviewed international journals, 14 publications published in peer reviewed journals following an international conference (Web of Science > 4500 citations, h-index: 36; Google Scholar > 6200 citations, h-index: 42) and 6 book chapters. He has given 30 invited talks in International Conferences/Winter-Summer Schools/Workshops. He has been the Publications Chair/Guest Editor of the Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Nitride semiconductors (IWN2008) and also served as Scientific Secretary of IWN2008 and of the 5th International Conference on Spontaneous Coherence in Excitonic Systems (ICSCE5). In 2012, he was one of the 149 scientists recognized by the Outstanding Referee program (http://publish.aps.org/OutstandingReferees) of the American Physical Society (APS) selected from a pool of roughly 60,000 currently active referees. Since September 2019, he is an Editorial Board Member of the newly launched open access APS journal, Physical Review Research. From September 2013 until December 2017, he was one of the Editors of the journal "Superlattices and Microstructures" (Elsevier). Since September 2015 he is a member of the Physics Doctoral School Teaching Committee. He was also a member of the EPFL Teaching Conference from September 2015 until August 2017. Anna Fontcuberta i Morral2014 Associate Professor at the Institut des Matériaux, EPFL
2008 Assistant Professor Tenure Track at the Institut des Matériaux, EPFL
2009 Habilitation in Physics, Technische Universität München
2005-2010 Marie Curie Excellence Grant Team Leader at Walter Schottky Institut, Technische Universität München, on leave from Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS, France)
2004-2005 Visiting Scientist at the California Institute of Technology, on leave from CNRS; Senior Scientist and co-founder of Aonex Technologies (a startup company for large area layer transfer of InP and Ge on foreign substrates for the main application of multi-junction solar cells)
2003 Permanent Research Fellow at CNRS, Ecole Polytechnique, France
2001-2002 Postdoctoral Scholar at the California Institute of Technology
Study of wafer bonding and hydrogen-induced exfoliation processes for integration of mismatched materials in views of photovoltaic applications
Sponsor: Professor Harry A. Atwater
1998-2001 PhD in Materials Science, Ecole Polytechnique
Study of polymorphous silicon: growth mechanisms, optical and structural properties. Application to Solar Cells and Thin Film Transistors
Advisor: Pere Roca i Cabarrocas
1997-1998 Diplôme dEtudes Approfondis (D.E.A.) in Materials Science at Université Paris XI, France .
1993-1997 BA in Physics at Universitat de Barcelona
Mohammad Khaja NazeeruddinDr. Md. K. Nazeeruddin received M.Sc. and Ph. D. in inorganic chemistry from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India. He joined as a Lecturer in Deccan College of Engineering and Technology, Osmania University in 1986, and subsequently, moved to Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute, Bhavnagar, as a Research Associate. He was awarded the Government of Indias fellowship in 1987 for study abroad. In 2014, EPFL awarded him the title of Professor. His current research at EPFL focuses on Dye Sensitized Solar Cells, Perovskite Solar Cells, CO2 reduction, Hydrogen production, and Light-emitting diodes. He has published more than 509 peer-reviewed papers, ten book chapters, and he is inventor/co-inventor of over 50 patents. The high impact of his work has been recognized by invitations to speak at over 130 international conferences, and has been nominated to the OLLA International Scientific Advisory Board. He appeared in the ISI listing of most cited chemists, and has more than 49'000 citations with an h-index of 105. He is teaching "Functional Materials" course at EPFL, and Korea University; directing, and managing several industrial, national, and European Union projects. He was awarded EPFL Excellence prize in 1998 and 2006, Brazilian FAPESP Fellowship in 1999, Japanese Government Science & Technology Agency Fellowship, in 1998, Government of India National Fellowship in 1987-1988. Recently he has been appointed as World Class University (WCU) professor by the Korea University, Jochiwon, Korea (http://dses.korea.ac.kr/eng/sub01_06_2.htm), Adjunct Professor by the King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Eminent Professor in Brunei. Camille Sophie BrèsProf. Camille-Sophie Brès is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Electrical Engineering within the School of Engineering of EPFL. Her primary research interests are centered optical communications and on parametric and nonlinear processes in optical fiber and non-silica platforms for ultrafast signal processing, all optical networks, sensing and light sources. She has authored over thirty peer-reviewed journal articles and has presented more than 15 papers at international conferences. She received the Gordon Wu Fellowship for her graduate studies, the NSF CIANs Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2009, the Early Career Woman in Engineering Award in 2016. She is a senior member of the IEEE and OSA. 2019 - present: Associate Professor in the Institute of Electrical Engineering, EPFL 2011 - 2018: Assistant Professor in the Institute of Electrical Engineering, EPFL 2010 - 2011: Assistant Project Scientist, University of California San Diego (UCSD) 2007 - 2010: Postdoc in ECE, University of California San Diego (UCSD) 2002 - 2007: Ph.D in Electrical Engineering, Princeton University 1998 - 2002: B.Eng with Honours in Electrical Engineering, McGill University
Giorgio MargaritondoCitizen of the USA and Switzerland, Giorgio Margaritondo was born in Rome, Italy, in 1946. He received the Laurea summa cum laude from the University of Rome in 1969. From 1969 he was an employee of the Italian National Research Council in Rome and Frascati and, in 1975-77, he was at Bell Laboratories in the USA. From 1978 to 1990, he was professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the USA; in 1984 he was nominated associate director for research of the Synchrotron Radiation Center of the same university. In 1990 he was nominated "professeur ordinaire" (full professor) at the EPFL; he directed the Institute of Applied Physics and the Physics Department. He was also a honorary faculty member at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. In 2001 he became Dean of the EPFL Faculty of Basic Sciences. In 2004 he was nominated Provost and he served until 2010, when he became Dean of Continuing Education, until his retirement from the EPFL in 2016 In addition to teaching general physics, his activity concerns the physics of semiconductors and superconductors (electronic states, surfaces and interfaces) and of biological systems; his main experimental techniques are electron spectroscopy and spectromicroscopy, x-ray imaging and scanning near-field microscopy, including experiments with synchrotron light and with free electron lasers. Author of more than 700 scientific publications and 9 books, he was also coordinator in 1995-98 of the scientific division of the Elettra synchrotron in Trieste. In 1997-2003 he was coordinator of the European Commission Round Table on synchrotron radiation, and then became president of the Council of the European Commission Integrated Initiative on Synchrotron and Free Electron Laser Science (IA-SFS and then ELISA), the largest network in the world in this domain. In 2011-15, he was Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Physics D (Applied Physics). He is currently vice-president of the council of the Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI), and president of the Scientific and Technological Committee of the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT). He is Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Vacuum Society and Fellow and Chartered Physicist of the Institute of Physics.
Vincenzo SavonaVincenzo Savona studied physics in Pisa at the Scuola Normale Superiore and the University of Pisa, prior to completing his PhD at the EPFL's Institute of Theoretical Physics. Subsequently he did post-doctoral work, first at the EPFL and then in the physics department of the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 2002, he returned to the EPFL to create his own research group, receiving a "professeur boursier" fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation. In 2006, he was appointed tenure-track assistant professor at the EPFL and joined the NCCR for Quantum Photonics. In 2010 he was appointed associate professor. Currently he directs the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics of Nanosystems.
Klaus KernKlaus Kern is Professor of Physics at EPFL and Director and Scientific Member at the Max-Planck-Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany. He also is Honorary Professor at the University of Konstanz, Germany. His present research interests are in nanoscale science, quantum technology and in microscopy at the atomic limits of space and time. He holds a chemistry degree and PhD from the University of Bonn and a honorary doctors degree from the University of Aalborg. After his doctoral studies he was staff scientist at the Research Center Jülich and visiting scientist at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill before joining the Faculty of EPFL in 1991 and the Max-Planck-Society in 1998. Professor Kern has authored and coauthored close to 700 scientific publications, which have received nearly 60‘000 citations. He has served frequently on advisory committees to universities, professional societies and institutions and has received numerous scientific awards and honors, including the 2008 Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz Prize and the 2016 Van‘t Hoff Prize. Prof. Kern has also educated a large number of leading scientists in nanoscale physics and chemistry. During the past twenty-five years he has supervised one hundred PhD students and sixty postdoctoral fellows. Today, more than fifty of his former students and postdocs hold prominent faculty positions at Universities around the world.
Christophe BallifChristophe Ballif is director of the Phototovoltaics and Thin Film Electronics Laboratoryb) (PV-Lab at the institute of microengineering (IMT) in Neuchâtel (part of the EPFL since 2009). The lab focus is on the science and technology of high efficiency heterojunction crystalline cells,so-called passivating contacts for solar cells, multi-junction solar cells include novel generation Perovskite on innovative optical high speed detector and on various macroelectronics application. It also deals with energy management with a focus on integration of solar electricity into the energy system. The PV-Lab has strongly contributed to technology transfer and industrialization of novel devices and full technology with numerous companies. Christophe Ballif graduated as a physicist from the EPFL in 1994, where he also obtained in 1998 his Phd degree working on novel PV materials. He accomplished his postdoctoral research at NREL (Golden, US) on compound semiconductor solar cells (CIGS and CdTe). He worked then at the Fraunhofer ISE (Ge) on crystalline silicon photovoltaics (monocrystalline and multi-crystalline) until 2003 and then at the EMPA in Thun (CH) before becoming full professor at the University of Neuchâtel IMT in 2004, taking over the chair of Prof. A. Shah. Since 2013, C.Ballif is also the director of the new CSEM PV-Center, also located in Neuchâtel. The CSEM PV-Center is focussing more on industrialisation and technology transfer in the field of solar energy, including solar electricity management and storage. At the core of the CSEM PV-center activities lies several "pilot lines" for various kinds of solar cells manufacturing, with a focus coating technologies, wet chemistry processes for crystalline silicon, metalisation techniques for solar cells, and a platform for developing "ideal packaging solutions and polymers" for PV modules. In addition, joined facitilites between CSEM and EPFL of over 800 m2 are available for modules manufacturing, measuring and accelerated aging. CSEM PV-center has also full team dedicated to storage and energy systems and operates a joined center with BFH in Biel for research on electrochemical storage. He (co-) authored over 500 journal and technical papers, as well as several patents. He is an elected member of the SATW, member of the scientific council of the Swiss AEE, and member of the board of the EPFL Energy center. In 2016, he recieved the Becquerel prize for his contributions to the field of high efficiency photovoltaics.
