Alexander Szameit (born 10 January 1979) is a German physicist working in experimental solid-state optics.

Biography

Szameit studied physics at the

Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (), also referred to as MLU, is a public university, public research university in the cities of Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Halle and Wittenberg. It is the largest and oldest university in the German State o ...

and the

University of Jena The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. The university was established in 1558 and is cou ...

, graduating in 2004. Following that, from 2004 to 2007 he pursued a doctoral degree at the University of Jena, graduating with the highest honor of "

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

". From 2009 he worked at the Technion in

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

as a

postdoctoral researcher A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). Postdocs most commonly, but not always, have a temporary acade ...

in the group of

Mordechai Segev Mordechai "Moti" Segev () is an Israeli physicist at the Technion who is known for his work on lasers, nonlinear optics, solitons, and quantum optics. Career Segev studied physics at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, earning ...

. In 2011 he returned to the University of Jena as a

junior professor The junior professorship is an academic rank at universities and research institutions in Germany. In 2002, this position was introduced with the fifth novella of the Framework Act for Higher Education to enable young scientists and academics wi ...

and acquired his habilitation in 2015. Since 2016, he is a professor at the

University of Rostock The University of Rostock () is a public university located in Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Founded in 1419, it is the third-oldest university in Germany. It is the oldest university in continental northern Europe and the Baltic Se ...

, where he leads the Experimental Solid-state Optics group. Since 2022, Szameit also serves on the board of the

German Research Foundation The German Research Foundation ( ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2019, the DFG had a funding bud ...

's collaborative research center 1477 "LiMatI"

Research

Szameit's work focuses on the investigation of optical wave phenomena in discrete systems. As experimental platforms, he utilizes artificial structured media such as arrays of coupled optical

waveguide A waveguide is a structure that guides waves by restricting the transmission of energy to one direction. Common types of waveguides include acoustic waveguides which direct sound, optical waveguides which direct light, and radio-frequency w ...

s directly inscribed into glass chips by

ultrafast laser In optics, an ultrashort pulse, also known as an ultrafast event, is an electromagnetic pulse whose time duration is of the order of a picosecond (10−12 second) or less. Such pulses have a broadband optical spectrum, and can be created by m ...

pulses, or synthetic mesh lattices implemented by time-multiplexed loops of

optical fibers An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at ...

. Using these techniques, his research covers a broad range of fields ranging from topological photonics, non-Hermitian and PT-symmetric optical systems,

integrated quantum photonics Integrated quantum photonics, uses photonic integrated circuits to control photonic quantum states for applications in quantum technologies. As such, integrated quantum photonics provides a promising approach to the miniaturisation and scaling up ...

and

nonlinear optics Nonlinear optics (NLO) is the branch of optics that describes the behaviour of light in Nonlinearity, nonlinear media, that is, media in which the polarization density P responds non-linearly to the electric field E of the light. The non-linearity ...

to synthetic

dimension In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a mathematical space (or object) is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus, a line has a dimension of one (1D) because only one coo ...

s and the emulation of

relativistic physics In physics, relativistic mechanics refers to mechanics compatible with special relativity (SR) and general relativity (GR). It provides a non- quantum mechanical description of a system of particles, or of a fluid, in cases where the velocities o ...

in on-chip light-based settings.

Awards and honors

* 2009: Doctoral prize of the DPG (

German Physical Society The German Physical Society (German: , DPG) is the oldest organisation of physicists. As of 2022, the DPG's worldwide membership is cited as 52,220, making it one of the largest national physics societies in the world. The DPG's membership peaked ...

) * 2014:

Adolph Lomb Medal The Adolph Lomb Medal, awarded by the Optical Society is a prize for young scientists (within 10 years of their highest degree) for their contributions to optics. It is named after Adolph Lomb, treasurer of the Optical Society of America from its fo ...

of the

Optical Society Optica, founded as the Optical Society of America (later the Optical Society), is a professional society of individuals and companies with an interest in optics and photonics. It publishes journals, organizes conferences and exhibitions, and ca ...

* 2015: Rudolf Kaiser award for experimental physics * 2017: Alfried Krupp prize of the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation * 2020:

Tomassoni award Tomassoni awards was the overarching name of two prizes for outstanding achievements in physics, the Premio Felice Pietro Chisesi e Caterina Tomassoni and the Premio Caterina Tomassoni e Felice Pietro Chisesi. The two prizes were awarded every one ...

* 2024: Elected as fellow of OpticaOptica Elected Fellows
Optica

Selected publications

* Rechtsman, Mikael C., Julia M. Zeuner, Yonatan Plotnik, Yaakov Lumer, Daniel Podolsky, Felix Dreisow, Stefan Nolte, Mordechai Segev, and Alexander Szameit. "Photonic Floquet topological insulators." Nature 496, no. 7444 (2013): 196–200. * Weimann, Steffen, Manuel Kremer, Yonatan Plotnik, Yaakov Lumer, Stefan Nolte, Konstantinos G. Makris, Mordechai Segev, Mikael C. Rechtsman, and Alexander Szameit. "Topologically protected bound states in photonic parity–time-symmetric crystals." Nature materials 16, no. 4 (2017): 433–438. * Tillmann, Max, Borivoje Dakić, René Heilmann, Stefan Nolte, Alexander Szameit, and Philip Walther. "Experimental boson sampling." Nature photonics 7, no. 7 (2013): 540–544. * Zeuner, Julia M., Mikael C. Rechtsman, Yonatan Plotnik, Yaakov Lumer, Stefan Nolte, Mark S. Rudner, Mordechai Segev, and Alexander Szameit. "Observation of a topological transition in the bulk of a non-Hermitian system." Physical review letters 115, no. 4 (2015): 040402. * Szameit, Alexander, and Stefan Nolte. "Discrete optics in femtosecond-laser-written photonic structures." Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics 43, no. 16 (2010): 163001.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Szameit, Alexander 1979 births Living people 21st-century German physicists German optical physicists University of Jena alumni