Programme 2014
The full programme of Physics@FOM Veldhoven 2014 is available here.
The Tuesday evening lecture was given by Andreas Heinrich. The other plenary speakers were Ursula Keller and David Nelson. A short biography of these speakers is given below.
Andreas Heinrich
Dr. Andreas Heinrich leads a research team at IBM's Almaden Research Center focused on exploring atomic-scale structures for possible applications in computation and data-storage. Heinrich is both a scientist and an engineer with a keen interest in advancing the experimental capabilities of state-of-the-art research tools. He and his team recently improved the time resolution of scanning tunneling microscopes by a factor of 1 million (Science 2010). And in January 2012 Heinrich and his team presented the world's smallest magnetic data storage elements consisting of only 12 atoms in Science. His longer-term interest lies in the emerging field of quantum computation, where he hopes to demonstrate the use of single magnetic atoms on surfaces as qubits.
Heinrich received his PhD in 1998 from the University of Goettingen in Germany where he studied the materials properties of ternary compound semiconductors. Then he joined the IBM research group of Dr. Donald Eigler as a postdoctoral researcher, where he built a next-generation low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope operating at temperatures below 1K and in high magnetic fields. In January 2005, Heinrich took over the leadership of the STM lab at IBM.
Ursula Keller
Ursula Keller, Professor of Physics at ETH since 1993, leads the Ultrafast Laser Physics group and also is a director of the Swiss multi-institute NCCR MUST program in ultrafast science since 2010. Her research interests lie in exploring and pushing the frontiers in ultrafast science and technology: ultrafast solid-state and semiconductor lasers, ultrashort pulse generation in the one to two optical cycle regime, frequency comb generation and stabilization, reliable and functional instrumentation for extreme ultraviolet to X-ray generation, attosecond science using high harmonic generation and intense infrared laser pulses in the two optical cycle regime.
Keller received her Physics 'Diplom' from ETH Zurich in 1984 and a PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University, USA in 1989. From 1989 to 1993, Keller was a Member of Technical Staff (MTS) at AT&T Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. She was a 'Visiting Miller Professor' at UC Berkeley in 2006 and a visiting professor at the Lund Institute of Technologies in 2001. She has been a co-founder and board member for Time-Bandwidth Products since 1995 and for GigaTera from 2000 to 2003, a venture capital funded telecom company during the 'bubble phase' which was acquired by Time-Bandwidth in 2003.
David Nelson
David R. Nelson received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1975 from Cornell University, and is Arthur K. Solomon Professor of Biophysics and Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Harvard University. His contributions to condensed matter theory include work (with Bertrand Halperin) on two-dimensional melting that predicts a fourth 'hexatic' phase of matter, interposed between the usual solid and liquid phases and work on the tangled 'spaghetti state' of vortex lines in high temperature superconductors. Much of Nelson's recent research has focused on problems that bridge the gap between the physical and biological sciences, including genetic demixing in microorganisms, single molecule biophysics and the structure of viruses. Nelson is the recipient of a five-year MacArthur Prize Fellowship, the National Academy of Sciences Prize for Initiatives in Research, the Harvard Ledlie Prize, the Bardeen Prize (for research on superconductivity) and the Buckley Prize (for research in soft condensed matter physics).