To view a complete Curriculum Vitae, please see here (pdf).
I received my PhD and Diploma degrees in Physics at the Free University of Berlin (Germany)
in July 2006 and March 2001, respectively.
From July 2006 until July 2008, I had a postdoctoral position at the center of advanced european
studies and research (caesar) in Bonn (Germany) on the project "Near-field investigations of nanopatterned materials".
From July 2008 to Oct. 2016 I joined the COPS group, first at the Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics (AMOLF) in Amsterdam
and then at the University of Twente in Enschede (The Netherlands)
on the projects "Ultrafast optical switching of microcavities", "Nanophotonic phase imprint", and "Applied Quantum Optics".
From October 2014 until October 2016, I had also a position as assistant professor at the Saxion University of Applied Sciences in the department of Nanotechnology, where I lead the projects "Lab-on-a-Chip" and "Magnetic Nano-Composites".
Since September 2017 I joined the Photonic Sensor Technology department at the Laser-Laboratory in Göttingen as group leader.
Main focus there is to enable photonic sensor technology for applications.
My first scientific achievements were on the growth of manganese on silicon surfaces,
where the structure of this for the spintronics community important material was studied in-situ
[1, 2, 3].
In 2006 I began working in the field of plasmonics [4],
where I had the idea to measure the effect of plasmons
on the magnetic response of a ferromagnetic film and vise versa. We therefore did the first experiments on the
transition metals (and classical ferromagnets) cobalt [5],
iron [6, 7],
and nickel [8].
The work is still ongoing and has roused a lot of interest in the community.
Since my move to COPS, I am working on controlling the light propagation through nanophotonic
structures. A first achievement has been the switching of semiconductor microcavities using the
instantaneous electronic Kerr effect [9, 10]
which allows to switch the optical properties independent of the material.
In my new position at the Laser-Laboratory, I am focused in further development of sensors working on optical principles
such as IR-absorption or Raman scattering. These sensors can then be used for example in trace gas detection in fields such as environment, safety, energy, and life sciences.