‘Nano-Quantum-Optics with Organic Molecules’

Vahid Sandoghdar obtained his B.S. in physics from the University of California at Davis in 1987 and Ph.D. in physics from Yale University in 1993. After a postdoctoral stay at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris he moved to the University of Konstanz in Germany in 1995, where he started a new line of research to combine single molecule spectroscopy, scanning probe microscopy and quantum optics. In 2001 he accepted a chair at the Laboratory of Physical Chemistry at ETH in Zurich, Switzerland. In 2011 he became director at the newly established Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen and Alexander von Humboldt Professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany. Sandoghdar is one of the founders of the field of Nano-Optics, which merges various methods and research areas to investigate fundamental issues in the interaction between light and matter at the nanometer scale. His current research ranges from quantum optics, plasmonics and ultrahigh resolution microscopy to nanobiophysics. His keynote lecture will be entitled ‘Nano-Quantum-Optics with Organic Molecules’