Prof. Dr. Tanja Mehlstäubler

Nanophotonics is the branch of science which investigates the behaviour of the interaction of light with nanometer- scale objects. It essentially deals with the transmission, manipulation and detection of light on a submicron scale. Taking the help of nanotechnology to scale down the photonics set up, nanophotonics finds its application in optical clocks, ion traps and quantum science and technology. The scaling down of the photonics components offers tremendous advantages in terms of scalability, power efficiency, cost and weight.

In the nanophotonics team at PTB we explore nanoscale systems for various optical active and passive elements to enable applications in quantum science and technology fields including integrated photonic sensors and clocks. Our research focuses on the iterative optics design and 3D characterization of novel, integrated nanophotonic active and passive elements for visible and ultra-violet wavelengths and to replace macroscopic optical benches and experiments. The activities of our team focus on developing new experimental nano-characterization techniques and analysing new materials for nanophotonic devices.

In the European Union project, QU-PIC (QUANTUM UNIVERSAL PHOTONIC INTEGRATED CIRCUIT PLATFORM) we aim to develop a toolkit of photonic integrated circuit (PIC) based quantum building blocks – including both active and passive elements - to accelerate the development of complex quantum systems, from idea to a fully packaged system.