Dieter Pohl (physicist)
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Dieter Pohl (Wolfgang Dieter Pohl, born 1938) is a German–Swiss physicist. He became known especially for his pioneering works in
nano-optics Nanophotonics or nano-optics is the study of the behavior of light on the nanometer scale, and of the interaction of nanometer-scale objects with light. It is a branch of optics, optical engineering, electrical engineering, and nanotechnology. I ...
, near field optics (NFO), and
plasmonics Plasmonics or nanoplasmonics refers to the generation, detection, and manipulation of signals at optical frequencies along metal-dielectric interfaces in the nanometer scale. Inspired by photonics, plasmonics follows the trend of miniaturizing op ...
. Pohl studied at the
University of Stuttgart The University of Stuttgart () is a research university located in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1829 and is organized into 10 faculties. It is one of the oldest technical universities in Germany with programs in civil, mechanical, ind ...
and the
Technische Universität München The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; ) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Established in 1868 by King Ludwig II ...
(TUM) where he did his doctorate with Wolfgang Kaiser. In 1968, he moved to
IBM Zurich Research Laboratory IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company. IBM Research is headquartered at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, near IBM headquarters i ...
in Rüschlikon and 1998 to
University of Basel The University of Basel (Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis''; German: ''Universität Basel'') is a public research university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest univ ...
. He was appointed titular professor in 2002. In 1982 he invented and developed the near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM/SNOM)., the first optical instrument that provided optical resolution far beyond Abbe's diffraction limit, e.g. 20 nm at wavelength 515 nm. In the following years the close relation between optical near-fields and plasmons was investigated, contributing to the emergence of the new field of
plasmonics Plasmonics or nanoplasmonics refers to the generation, detection, and manipulation of signals at optical frequencies along metal-dielectric interfaces in the nanometer scale. Inspired by photonics, plasmonics follows the trend of miniaturizing op ...
. 1999 Dieter Pohl suggested antennas as ideal sources or probes of localized optical near-fields. The problem was that ''optical antennas'' have to be 1000000 times smaller than the TV antennas one can see on any roof. By 2005, Dieter and his coworkers had solved the problem and could demonstrate for the first time the resonance and lifetime-reducing properties of nanometer-sized
dipole antenna In radio and telecommunications a dipole antenna or doublet is one of the two simplest and most widely used antenna types, types of antenna; the other is the monopole antenna, monopole. The dipole is any one of a class of antennas producin ...
s as well as an extremely high local intensity in the (antenna) gap, the place where the wires of a TV antenna are fixed. The intensity caused higher order nonlinear light emission, an interesting fact in view of the tiny near-field spot. In 1992, Dieter Pohl and Daniel Courjon organized a workshop on near-field optics (NFO) that was to become the origin of bi-annual international NFO-x conferences (2018: x = 15), a platform for nano-, near-field-, nonlinear optics, plasmonics, metamaterials, quantum information, biosensing and ultrafast dynamics. Dieter Pohl contributed to various reviews and book publications. He acted as reviewer for the
Swiss National Science Foundation The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF, German: , SNF; French: , FNS; Italian: ) is a science research support organisation mandated by the Swiss Federal Government. The Swiss National Science Foundation was established under private law b ...
(SNF) and the German DFG. A complete list of his papers and inventions will be found on his home page. ;Publications and Patents ≈121 publications ≈20 patents, mostly on scanning probe microscopy, micromechanics, storage; diverse publications in the '' IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin'' ;Awards and Honors * 1996 Carl-Zeiss Research Award * 1997 Rank Prize for Electro-Optics * 1999 Humboldt Research Prize * 1968-1998 various IBM internal awards * 2013 Stern-Gerlach Medal of the German Physical Society ;Memberships *
Swiss Physical Society The Swiss Physical Society (SPS) (German: Schweizerische Physikalische Gesellschaft / SPG, French: Société Suisse de Physique / SSP) is a Swiss professional society promoting physics in Switzerland. It was founded in May 1908. SPS is involved in ...
*
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 ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pohl, Dieter 1938 births Living people 20th-century German physicists 20th-century Swiss physicists University of Stuttgart alumni Technical University of Munich alumni Academic staff of the University of Basel Place of birth missing (living people)