Lasers, Optics & Photonics

Biography

Ortwin Hess is a theoretical physicist in condensed matter quantum optics. He currently holds the Leverhulme Chair in the Blackett Laboratory (Department of Physics) at Imperial College London. He heads a team of researchers working on light-matter interaction in quantum nano-photonics, plasmonics and metamaterials, semiconductor nano-photonics and nano-laser dynamics and is Co-Director of Imperial’s Centre for Plasmonics & Metamaterials. He obtained the PhD degree from the Technical University of Berlin (Germany) in 1993, while spending extended time (1990 – 1992) in Edinburgh (UK). After a post-doc at the University of Marburg (Germany) he obtained his Habilitation in Theoretical Physics at the University of Stuttgart in 1997. He was Visiting Professor at Stanford University (1997/98) and at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich (1999/2000). Before moving to Imperial College in January 2011 he was from 2003 to 2010 Professor of Theoretical Condensed Matter and Optical Physics at the University of Surrey (Guildford, UK).

Research Interest

• quantum nano-photonics (nanoplasmonics, plasmonic nano-lasers, quantum plasmonics) • optical, electronic and phononic metamaterials, • ultrafast semiconductor nano-photonics and nano-laser dynamics.