New Professor at Experimental Physics

The new group ‘Optics of Nano and Quantum Materials’ led by Peter Banzer will explore fundamental aspects and novel applications of light and matter interacting with each other at very small spatial and temporal dimensions. In this context, the spatial structure of light is a fascinating and versatile tool and playground, which is of great importance from both a fundamental physical and an applied perspective. Engineered light fields and their interaction with structured matter pave the way towards the exploration of countless intriguing effects, phenomena and applications. In a nutshell and among other topics, the group’s research will focus on the study and development of novel materials, nanometrological, sensing and imaging applications, utilization of integrated optical circuits, the development of novel detectors redefining the way we sense our world, and the investigation of quantum sources with a strong emphasis on structured light fields.

 

CV:

Peter Banzer studied physics (diploma) at the Friedrich-Alexander-University (FAU) Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany. He earned his Ph.D. degree from the FAU in 2012. During his Ph.D. studies at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) and the Max Planck Research group for Optics, Information and Photonics, he developed experimental systems and corresponding schemes for the investigation of optical properties of individual nanoscopic systems utilizing light’s spatial vectorial degrees of freedom. Furthermore, Peter studied different types of plasmonic meta-atoms, beam-shift phenomena at the nanoscale, schemes for the experimental full-vectorial reconstruction and analytical description of highly confined electromagnetic fields and got involved in projects utilizing spatial and vectorial modes of light in quantum optics and communications. Since 2008, he led the Interference Microscopy, Polarization and Nano-Optics group (InMik), part of Gerd Leuchs’s division at MPL. In 2014, he started the habilitation process at FAU, which he finished successfully in 2019. From May 2014 to July 2015, he was a visiting researcher in the group of Robert W. Boyd (Canadian Excellence Research Chair in Quantum Nonlinear Optics) at the University of Ottawa, Canada. In 2015, he was awarded a Feodor-Lynen-Fellowship by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. In addition, Peter was the scientific coordinator of the International Max Planck Research School - Physics of Light (IMPRS-PL) from 2015-2020, the ombudsperson for good scientific practice (2011-2020), and the coordinator of the Max Planck – University of Ottawa Centre for Extreme and Quantum Photonics (2015-2020). He was also an interim professor at FAU (Chair of Experimental Physics; 2018-2019). In 2020, he accepted the offer to join the faculty of the University of Graz as a full professor. His new group ‘Optics of Nano and Quantum Materials’ will explore fundamental aspects and applications of confined light and matter interacting with each other at nanoscale dimensions. Among other topics, the research will focus on the study and development of novel materials, nanometrological and imaging applications, on-chip circuitry and quantum sources with a strong emphasis on structured light fields.

Peter is fascinated by nano- and nonparaxial optics, light-matter interactions at nanoscale dimensions, spin-orbit coupling and plasmonics, angular momenta of light, the generation and description of spatial and vectorial modes of the light field and their application and utilization in imaging, sensing, metrology and quantum optics. He loves working with young and enthusiastic scientists who are driven by curiosity.