- Ultrafast light-matter interactions and optical quantum phenomena in nanostructured matter
- Nonlinear spatio-temporal dynamics, plasmonics, and near field optics
- Integrated quantum optics, quantum imaging, and quantum sensing
Multi-tip scanning nearfield optical microscopy (SNOM) and photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM)
Education:Diploma, Electrical Engineering, 1996, Technical University Dresden, Germany and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, New York, USA
PhD, Physics (Dr. rer. nat.), 2003, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany
Thomas Pertsch is Professor for Applied Physics and one of the directors of the Abbe Center of Photonics (www.acp.uni-jena.de) at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany. He heads the Nano and Quantum Optics group at the Institute of Applied Physics (www.iap.uni-jena.de/nano+quantum+optics) and is a Fellow of the Max Planck School of Photonics (www.maxplanckschools.de).
His research interests span broadly over the field of ultrafast light-matter interactions and optical quantum phenomena in nanostructured matter, as e.g. photonic nanomaterials, metamaterials, photonic crystals, and 2D materials (TMDCs). He is an expert in nonlinear spatio-temporal dynamics, plasmonics, near field optics, high-Q nonlinear optical microresonators, opto-optical processes in integrated optics, and all-optical signal processing. Recently he extended his research towards integrated quantum optics, quantum imaging, and quantum sensing but also on the development of methods for studying light control on the nanoscale by multi-tip scanning nearfield optical microscopy (SNOM) and photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM).
The results of his work are published in more than 250 peer-reviewed scientific articles (citations ~10.000, h of 49) and around 400 conference presentations. He is also a Fellow of the Optical Society of America. Professor Pertsch is engaged in several collaborative research centres. He is a principal investigator of the German Center of Excellence Microvers (www.microverse-cluster.de), the Collaborative Research Center for Nonlinear Optics down to Atomic Scales (www.noa.uni-jena.de), and co-director of the Thuringian Innovation Center for Quantum Optics and Sensing.
In alignment with his research interests, Professor Pertsch is an enthusiastic teacher. As a founding member of the Abbe School of Photonics, Jena, Germany (www.asp.uni-jena.de), he promotes international education programs and career opportunities for the next generation of scientists in photonics. As part of these activities, he also connects young students to the hot problems of the photonics industry in the Lichtwerkstatt (www.lichtwerkstatt-jena.de), which is a photonics makerspace that he initiated.