QEOD Prizes -2025

EPS-QEOD (Quantum Electronics and Optics Division) Prizes

A series of prestigious EPS-QEOD Prizes and Awards distributed in uneven years will be presented in a special Plenary and Awards Ceremony during CLEO®/Europe-EQEC 2025 to take place on on Tuesday morning, June 24, 2025..


EPS-QEOD Quantum Electronics and Optics Prize -2025
Applied aspects
Photo_Zheludev_Nikolay

The 2025 EPS-QEOD Quantum Electronics and Optics Prize for applied aspects is awarded to Nikolay Zheludev, University of Southampton, UK, for pioneering discoveries and leadership in the fields of metamaterials, nanophotonics, optical super-oscillations, toroidal electrodynamics, as well as diverse applications across optical science.                                                                                                                                                                

Know more
u003cstrongu003eNikolay Zheludev003c/strongu003e

Nikolay Zheludev

Nikolay Zheludev is a Professor of Physics at the University of Southampton UK, Distinguished Fellow, Institute of Advanced Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and Hagler Fellow, Hagler Institute for Advanced Study, Texas A&M University, USA.  

He received his PhD and DSc degrees from Moscow State University. He joined the faculty at the University of Southampton in 1991, where he became Deputy Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre in 2005. From 2012 until 2024, he had a parallel appointment as the President’s Professor of Physics at NTU Singapore, where he was the founding Director of the Centre for Disruptive Photonic Technologies and the founding co-Director of The Photonics Institute.  

Nikolay is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Member of the USA National Academy of Engineering. He is also a Fellow of the EPS, APS, IOP and Optica. 

Fundamental aspects
Photo_Markus_Aspelmeyer

The 2025 EPS-QEOD Quantum Electronics and Optics Prize for fundamental aspects is awarded to Markus Aspelmeyer, University of Vienna & Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information - Vienna, Austria, For his pioneering contributions to the field of quantum optomechanics, a new paradigm that allows to control solid-state quantum systems and explore new regimes of macroscopic quantum phenomena.

Know more
u003cstrongu003eVahid Sandgohdaru003c/strongu003e

Vahid Sandoghdar

Vahid Sandoghdar was born in Tehran, Iran and obtained his B.S. and Ph.D in physics from the University of California in Davis and Yale University. After a postdoc at Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, he moved to the University of Konstanz in Germany and started a new line of research to combine single molecule spectroscopy, scanning probe microscopy and quantum optics. In 2001, he became full professor at ETH Zurich. In 2011, he was appointed director at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light and Alexander von Humboldt Professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Sandoghdar has pioneered the field of Nano-Optics to investigate and exploit nanometer-scale interaction of light and matter within a broad scope, ranging from quantum optics to biophotonics.

FrESNEL Prizes 2025
Applied aspects
Photo_Cristina Benea-Chelmus

The 2025 Fresnel Prize for applied aspects is awarded to Ileana-Cristina Benea-Chelmus,  EPFL STI-IEM-HYLAB,  Lausanne, Switzerland For contributions to terahertz and microwave photonics, including the development of integrated electro-optic platforms for field correlation sensing, high-speed modulators, and miniaturized on-chip detectors for classical and quantum domains, bridging applied and fundamental physics. 

Know more
u003cspan style=u0022color: #000000;u0022u003eu003cstrongu003eZuo Chaou003c/strongu003e nu003c/spanu003e

Cristina Benea-Chelmus

Cristina Benea-Chelmus is a Tenure Track Assistant Professor in Engineering at EPFL since January 2022. 

She leads the Hybrid Photonics Laboratory which develops hybrid electronic-photonic chips for both applied and fundamental sciences. Her research interfaces millimeterwave and terahertz signals with optical ones, aiming to provide innovative solutions for high-capacity communications, millimeterwave quantum circuits, chip-based sensing and time-domain ranging technologies. 

Prior to her appointment, she was a Postdoctoral scientist at Harvard, leading efforts on tunable metasurfaces, supported by the Hans-Eggenberger Foundation and the Swiss National Science Foundation. She received her Ph.D. in 2018 from ETH Zurich on quantum metrology of vacuum field fluctuations, for which she received multiple recognitions, and studied at KIT, Germany until 2013. 

Fundamental aspects
Photo_Junqiu Liu

The 2025 Fresnel Prize for fundamental aspects is awarded to Junqiu Liu, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei National Laboratory, Hefei, Anhui, China for pioneering contributions to ultralow-loss silicon nitride integrated photonics and its applications in nonlinear optics, quantum information, and frequency metrology, bridging fundamental and applied physics.                           

Know more
u003cspan style=u0022color: #000000;u0022u003eu003cstrongu003eJunqiu Liu003c/strongu003eu003c/spanu003e

Junqiu Liu

Junqiu Liu is a principal scientist at Shenzhen International Quantum Academy and a tenure-track assistant professor at Hefei National Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). He received Ph.D. from EPFL in 2020, MSc (with highest distinction) from FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg in 2016, and BSc from USTC in 2012. His research lies in the interdisciplinary domains of integrated photonics, nonlinear optics, quantum information, MEMS, and microwave photonics. His PhD thesis entitled “Silicon Nitride Integrated Nonlinear Photonics” was awarded 2021 EPFL Doctorate Award, “For ground breaking experiments in the field of chip-scale frequency combs and the extraordinary record of scientific accomplishments”. His research has seeded several startups. He has being serving as an associate editor at Physical Review Applied since 2024. 

 Thesis Prizes -2025
Optical Spectroscopy and Electron Microscopy of Nanophotonic Dynamics 
Joel_Kuttruff

The 2025 EPS-QEOD Thesis Prize for fundamental aspects is awarded to Joel Kuttruff, University of Konstanz, Department of Physics, Germany for contributions to ultrafast electron microscopy and nanophotonics, with a focus on attosecond and sub-nanometer resolution imaging. 

Know more
u003cspan style=u0022color: #000000;u0022u003eu003cstrongu003eJoel Kuttruff 003c/strongu003eu003c/spanu003e

 

Joel Kuttruff is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Physics at the University of Konstanz, Germany. He earned his Ph.D. at the same institution under the supervision of Prof. Peter Baum, specializing in ultrafast electron microscopy and nanophotonics, and graduated summa cum laude. 

He previously completed his M.Sc. in Physics with research focused on ultrafast spectroscopy, working with Prof. Nicolò Maccaferri (Umeå University, Sweden) and Prof. Daniele Brida (University of Luxembourg). He obtained his B.Sc. working on plasmonics with Prof. Stefan Maier (now at Monash University, Melbourne). 

His research is dedicated to advancing ultrafast electron microscopy as a tool for investigating dynamic processes on the nanoscale, with particular emphasis on resolving ultrafast phenomena in materials science and photonics. 

 
Nanophotonics with charged particles                                                                                                              
11.01.2024, Mitarbeiterportrait - Valerio Di Giulio. Foto: Swen Pförtner / Max-Planck-Institut für Multidisziplinäre Naturwissenschaften

The 2025 EPS-QEOD Thesis Prize for fundamental aspects is awarded to Valerio Di Giulio, Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences,Göttingen, Germany,  for theoretical advances in quantum optics with free electrons, including pioneering contributions to electron coherence and the application of nanophotonics to electron–positron pair production. 

Know more
u003cspan style=u0022color: #000000;u0022u003eu003cstrongu003eSValerio Di Giulio003c/strongu003eu003c/spanu003e

Valerio Di Giuli

Valerio Di Giulio earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in theoretical physics with honors from La Sapienza University. During his master’s, he explored quantum foundations under Prof. Fabio Sciarrino.
In 2018, he started his PhD at ICFO with Prof. F. Javier García de Abajo, supported by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship. His research focused on tailoring light-matter phenomena via nanophotonics techniques and on probing and generating quantum-light states in photonic structures with free electrons. In 2024, his PhD thesis received the ICFO PhD Thesis Award. He currently works as a postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Claus Ropers at the Max Planck Institute and the University of Göttingen, studying ultrafast control of electron-beam phase space densities through structured light
and engineered photonic environments.ntarctica.
Broadband integrated photonics with planarized terahertz quantum cascade lasers 
Capture d’écran 2025-06-17 à 14.49.43

The 2025 EPS-QEOD Thesis Prize for applied aspects is awarded to  Urban Senica, ETH Zurich, Institute of Quantum Electronics 
Switzerland or experimental contributions to integrated terahertz photonics, including the development of planarized quantum cascade lasers and inverse-designed devices, enabling broadband frequency combs, soliton generation, and effective ultrafast pulse emission.

Know more
u003cspan style=u0022color: #000000;u0022u003eu003cstrongu003e Urban Senica003c/strongu003eu003c/spanu003e
Urban Senica is presently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University in the group of Prof.
Marko Loncar, where he conducts research on integrated nonlinear photonics with thin-film lithium niobate and semiconductor lasers. He completed his Ph.D. in Physics at ETH Zurich under the supervision of Prof. Giacomo Scalari and Prof. Jérôme Faist, where he developed an integrated photonics platform based on planarized terahertz quantum cascade lasers, frequency combs, microwave and passive components, for which he was awarded the ETH Medal. His previous research experience includes working on nanowire lasers at TU Munich, radiation-hard semiconductor particle detectors at CERN, and silicon solar cells at the University of Ljubljana.
Diffraction radiation from dielectric, silver and graphene circular nanowire configurations excited by modulated electron beam 
Photo_Dariia_Herasymova

The 2025 EPS-QEOD Thesis Prize for applied aspects is awarded to Dariia O. Herasymova, Institute of Radio-Physics and Electronics, NAS of Ukraine, Kharkiv, Ukraine for the development of effective modelling to investigate diffraction radiation from nanowire configurations.          

Know more
u003cspan style=u0022color: #000000;u0022u003eu003cstrongu003eDariia O. Herasymova003c/strongu003e u003c/spanu003e

Dariia Herasymova earned her PhD in Physics and Astronomy in March 2024 at the Laboratory of Micro and Nano Optics of the Institute of Radio-Physics and Electronics, National Academy of Science of Ukraine, Kharkiv, Ukraine under the supervision of Prof. Alexander Nosich and Dr. Sergii Dukhopelnykov. Currently, she is a postdoctoral researcher on diffraction radiation, optical antennas and lasing. Dariia earned her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Optoelectronics and Photonics from the Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics.

 Dariia’s ongoing work is concentrated on the accurate modeling, with analytical-numerical techniques, of the diffraction radiation, including the Smith-Purcell effect, of the modulated electron beams in the presence of micro and nano-size dielectric, metal and graphene obstacles as well as finite gratings composed of these scatterers, in the visible and THz ranges.

QEOD Prizes -2023

EPS-QEOD (Quantum Electronics and Optics Division) Prizes

A series of prestigious EPS-QEOD Prizes and Awards distributed in uneven years will be presented in a special Plenary and Awards Ceremony during CLEO®/Europe-EQEC 2023 to take place on Tuesday morning, June 27, 2023.


2023-EPS-QEOD Quantum Electronics and Optics Prize
3068_Cerullo

The 2023 EPS-QEOD Quantum Electronics and Optics Prize for applied aspects is awarded to Giulio Cerullo, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy, for pioneering and outstanding contributions to the generation of few-cycle light pulses and for their application to the study of primary photoinduced processes in (bio)molecules and nanostructures.

Know more
u003cstrongu003eGiulio Cerullo003c/strongu003e

Giulio Cerullo

Giulio Cerullo is a Full Professor with the Physics Department, Politecnico di Milano, where he leads the Ultrafast Optical Spectroscopy laboratory. His research activity focuses on the generation of tunable few-optical-cycle light pulses and on their application to the study of primary photoinduced processes in molecules, nanostructures and two-dimensional materials. He has published more than 500 papers which have received over 28000 citations. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, of the European Physical Society, a member of the Accademia dei Lincei and past Chair of the Quantum Electronics and Optics Division of the European Physical Society. He has been General Chair of the conferences CLEO/Europe 2017, Ultrafast Phenomena 2018 and International Conference on Raman Spectroscopy 2022.

2023-EPS-QEOD Quantum Electronics and Optics Prize
Vahid-Sandoghdar-head-shot

Prof. The 2023 EPS-QEOD Quantum Electronics and Optics Prize for fundamental aspects is awarded to Vahid Sandoghdar, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Erlangen, Germany, for ground-breaking research on the efficiency of light-matter interaction in quantum optics and biophysics, leading to single-molecule strong coupling and label-free detection of small proteins.

Know more
u003cstrongu003eVahid Sandgohdaru003c/strongu003e

Vahid Sandoghdar

Vahid Sandoghdar was born in Tehran, Iran and obtained his B.S. and Ph.D in physics from the University of California in Davis and Yale University. After a postdoc at Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, he moved to the University of Konstanz in Germany and started a new line of research to combine single molecule spectroscopy, scanning probe microscopy and quantum optics. In 2001, he became full professor at ETH Zurich. In 2011, he was appointed director at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light and Alexander von Humboldt Professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Sandoghdar has pioneered the field of Nano-Optics to investigate and exploit nanometer-scale interaction of light and matter within a broad scope, ranging from quantum optics to biophotonics.

FrESNEL Prizes 2023
Applied aspects
Chao

The 2023 Fresnel Prize for applied aspects is awarded to Zuo Chao, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Jiangsu, China, for pioneering contributions to computational phase imaging and metrology, particularly for noninterferometic quantitative phase imaging and high-speed 3D optical metrology.

Know more
u003cspan style=u0022color: #000000;u0022u003eu003cstrongu003eZuo Chaou003c/strongu003e nu003c/spanu003e

Zuo Chao

Zuo Chao is a professor in optical engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology (NJUST), China. He leads the Smart Computational Imaging Laboratory (SCILab: www.scilaboratory.com) and is also the director of the Smart Computational Imaging Research Institute of NJUST. He has long been engaged in the development of novel Computational Imaging and Measurement technologies, with a focus on Phase Measuring Imaging Metrology. He has published >200 peer-reviewed articles with over 12,000 citations. These researches have been featured on journal cover (including Light, Optica, LPR, PhotoniX, AP, etc.) over 30 times. He currently serves as an Associate Editor of PhotoniX and OLEN. He is a Fellow of SPIE and Optica, and listed as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher.

Fundamental aspects
xcgong_Fresnel_2023

The 2023 Fresnel Prize for fundamental aspects is awarded to Xiaochun Gong, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, for outstanding contributions to the field of attosecond science and for developing attosecond coincidence metrology to ultrafast photonics.

Know more
u003cspan style=u0022color: #000000;u0022u003eu003cstrongu003eXiaochun Gongu003c/strongu003eu003c/spanu003e

Xiaochun Gong

Xiaochun Gong received his Ph.D. in physics from East China Normal University of Shanghai, China, in 2017, with a thesis on Probing the ultrafast ionization and dissociation dynamics of molecules in strong laser fields. He performed his post-doc research at ETH Zürich, where he started his attosecond science research by constructing a new attosecond coincidence interferometer to realize the attosecond timing of local electron emission in small, size-resolved water. After that, he returned back to ECNU. Currently, he is a professor in charge of attosecond science development, and his main research interest is the development of attosecond metrology through 3D-momenta and optical spectroscopy to probe and control the ultrafast electron dynamics from atoms molecules to clusters and even condensed matter.

Thesis Prizes 2023
Predictive Modelling of Ultrafast Hot Carrier Dynamics and Nonlinear Photothermal Phenomena in Designer Nanophotonic Structures.
ASchirato_v2_sized2

The 2023 EPS-QEOD Thesis Prize for fundamental aspects is awarded to Andrea Schirato, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy, for having introduced spatially-resolved models for the hot carrier ultrafast dynamics and inherent photothermal nonlinearities, disclosing nonequilibrium regimes so far unexplored in nanophotonics.

Know more
u003cspan style=u0022color: #000000;u0022u003eu003cstrongu003eAndrea Schiratou003c/strongu003eu003c/spanu003e

Andrea Schirato

Andrea Schirato is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Physics of Politecnico di Milano (PoliMi, Italy), currently visiting scholar at Rice University (Houston, TX), after having received his Ph.D. with note of merit in 2022 from PoliMi and the Italian Institute of Technology (Genoa, Italy) under the supervision of Profs. G. Della Valle and R. Proietti Zaccaria. He previously obtained his double-MSc cum laude in Engineering Physics across PoliMi and École Centrale Paris in 2019, and his BSc across PoliMi and Paris-Sud University (France) in 2018. His research activities focus on the theoretical study and numerical modelling of ultrafast photothermal phenomena driven by light-induced hot carriers, including out-of-equilibrium electronic nonlinearities and energy transfer in nanostructured materials and metasurfaces.
Ultrafast Ultrastrong light-matter coupling at the nanoscale
Shima_Rajabali_EPS-QEOD_prize

The 2023 EPS-QEOD Thesis Prize for fundamental aspects is awarded to Shima Rajabali, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland, for his thesis investigating the limits of interaction between light and matter at terahertz frequencies in a highly light-matter coupled system shrunk to the nanoscale.

Know more
u003cspan style=u0022color: #000000;u0022u003eu003cstrongu003eShima Rajabaliu003c/strongu003eu003c/spanu003e

Shima Rajabali

Shima Rajabali is a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, specializing in integrated lithium niobate photonics for wireless communications. She has been awarded two postdoctoral fellowships, the Harvard Quantum Initiative and the Swiss National Science Foundation. Shima earned her Ph.D. from ETH Zurich, Switzerland in December 2021, where she focused on exploring the ultrastrong interaction between light and matter at terahertz frequencies at the nanoscale. Her research led to the discovery of a physical limit to increasing coupling strength and the development of an innovative confocal system to resolve the far-field transmission of a single subwavelength meta-atom. After her Ph.D., as a postdoctoral researcher at EPFL, she worked on “Lithium Niobate-based on-chip spectroscopy.” Shima obtained her BSc and MSc in Electronics from the University of Tehran, Iran. Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole, Antarctica.
Heralded Spectroscopy - a new probe for nanocrystal multiexciton photophysics.
Gur Lubin_23-02-02_2349

Dr. Paulo André Dias Gonçalves, ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences, Barcelona, Spain for fundamental contributions to nanoscale electrodynamics and light–matter interactions with the incorporation of quantum mechanical effects in metal nanostructures and two-dimensional nanophotonics.

Know more
u003cspan style=u0022color: #000000;u0022u003eu003cstrongu003e Gur Lubinu003c/strongu003eu003c/spanu003e

Gur Lubin

Gur Lubin received his Ph.D. in physics from the Weizmann Institute of Science in 2023 under the mentorship of Prof. Dan Oron. His doctorate pioneered a novel experimental method, Heralded Spectroscopy, revealing hidden aspects of nanocrystal light-matter interaction and supporting unprecedented access to investigating quantum few-photon sources. For his contributions to the field Gur has been awarded several prizes, including the Dostrovsky Excellence Prize and the SPIE - Pico Quant Young Investigator Award. Gur's work lies at the confluence of quantum optics, nanophotonics, and spectroscopy, especially their integration to provide a deeper photophysical understanding of quantum light emitters. Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole, Antarctica.
Noise-resilient entanglement distribution in high-dimensional state spaces
SebastianEcker1

The 2023 EPS-QEOD Thesis Prize for applied aspects is awarded to Sebastian Ecker, Quantum Technology Laboratories GmbH, Vienna, Austria, for theoretical and experimental investigations of the use of high-dimensional quantum information encoding to improve entanglement distribution in the presence of noise and loss.


Know more
u003cspan style=u0022color: #000000;u0022u003eu003cstrongu003eSebastian Eckeru003c/strongu003e u003c/spanu003e

Sebastian Ecker

Sebastian Ecker earned his master’s degree at the TU Vienna in Technical Physics, where he studied high-dimensional entanglement distribution over intra-city free-space links in the group of Rupert Ursin under the supervision of Anton Zeilinger. He then enrolled at the University of Vienna for his PhD, which he conducted at the IQOQI Vienna in the group of Rupert Ursin under the supervision of Marcus Huber. His PhD thesis is devoted to noise-resilient entanglement distribution using high-dimensional quantum states. He has been involved in several experimental feasibility studies involving terrestrial free-space links and participated in the 77th ESA Parabolic Flight Campaign. Towards the end of his PhD, he acted as visiting scientist for the ESA, where he identified future quantum technologies for space-based QKD. He currently works at Quantum Technology Laboratories GmbH (qtlabs) as senior scientist and consultant.

Organizations

logo_EPS_black
ym
optica

Do you have any question?

Feel free to Contact us
Contact us