Markus Aspelmeyer is an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n quantum physicist. Aspelmeyer was born 1974 in the

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

n town Schongau. He also attended the local school, where he received his

abitur ''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...

in 1993. He studied

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

and

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's List of universities in Germany, sixth-oldest u ...

, receiving his BS in philosophy and his

Ph.D A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

in physics in 2002. He joined the group of

Anton Zeilinger Anton Zeilinger (; born 20 May 1945) is an Austrian quantum physicist and Nobel laureate in physics of 2022. Zeilinger is professor of physics emeritus at the University of Vienna and senior scientist at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Qua ...

at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

in 2002 with a Feodor Lynen PostDoctoral Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He became Universitätsassistent at the University and then, Junior, later Senior Researcher, at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences where he is leading a research team working on quantum effects in micro- and nanomechanical systems. His research interests are

quantum entanglement Quantum entanglement is the phenomenon that occurs when a group of particles are generated, interact, or share spatial proximity in a way such that the quantum state of each particle of the group cannot be described independently of the state of ...

and

quantum optics Quantum optics is a branch of atomic, molecular, and optical physics dealing with how individual quanta of light, known as photons, interact with atoms and molecules. It includes the study of the particle-like properties of photons. Photons have b ...

. He was awarded the

Lieben Prize The Ignaz Lieben Prize, named after the Austrian banker , is an annual Austrian award made by the Austrian Academy of Sciences to young scientists working in the fields of molecular biology, chemistry, or physics. Biography The Ignaz Lieben Pri ...

in 2007 and an ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grant in 2009. He was offered chairs at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, the

University of Calgary The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...

and the

and currently holds the chair for Quantum Information on the Nanoscale at the

. For his work in quantum optics, quantum information and quantum-opto-mechanics he has received the Fresnel Prize of the

European Physical Society The European Physical Society (EPS) is a non-profit organisation whose purpose is to promote physics and physicists in Europe through methods such as physics outreach. Formally established in 1968, its membership includes the national physical so ...

, the Ignaz Lieben Prize of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Fritz-Kohlrausch Prize of the Austrian Physical Society. Together with Garrett Cole, co-founding partner of Crystalline Mirror Solutions (CMS), he received the second prize of the

Berthold Leibinger Innovationspreis __NOTOC__ The Berthold Leibinger Innovationspreis is an award for given to those who have created applied laser technology and innovations on the application or generation of laser light. It is open to participants worldwide. It is biennially awar ...

in 2016 for the development of substrate-transferred crystalline coatings. In December 2019 CMS was acquired by

Thorlabs Thorlabs, Inc. is an American privately held optical equipment company headquartered in Newton, New Jersey. The company was founded in 1989 by Alex Cable, who serves as its current president and CEO. As of 2018, Thorlabs has annual sales of approx ...

Inc.

References

* * * * 1974 births Living people 21st-century German physicists 21st-century Austrian physicists Academic staff of the University of Vienna German expatriates in Austria Members of the Austrian Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Physical Society {{Germany-physicist-stub