1. Markus Pollnau

Prof. Dr. Markus Pollnau received the M.Sc. degree in Physics from the University of Hamburg, Germany, in 1992 and the Ph.D. degree in Physics from the University of Bern, Switzerland, in 1996. After postdoctoral positions with the University of Southampton and the University of Bern, he was a Project and Research Group Leader with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland. In 2004, he became a Full Professor at the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, The Netherlands. In 2014 he moved to the Department of Materials and Nano Physics, KTH – Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, where he is chairing the Rare-Earth Lasers and Integrated Devices Group.

Prof. Pollnau has contributed to more than 500 reviewed journal and international conference papers and eleven book chapters in the fields of crystal and thin-film growth, rare-earth-ion spectroscopy, solid-state and fiber lasers, and waveguide fabrication, devices, and applications. He has held European, Swiss, and Dutch personal Fellowships and has obtained numerous National and European Research Grants. In 2013 he won the ERC Advanced Grant “Optical Ultra-Sensor” of the European Research Council. He has been involved in the organization of major international conferences, e.g., as a Program and General Co-chair of the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (2006/2008) and the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe (2009/2011), and served as a Topical Editor for the Journal of the Optical Society of America B and on the editorial board of the journal Laser Physics Letters. He was elected a Fellow of the Optical Society of America in 2013 and a Fellow of the European Physical Society in 2014.