The Quantum Electronics and Optics Division (QEOD) of EPS is delighted to announce that Prof. Albert Polman has been elected the winner of the 2017 prize for Research into the Science of Light "for mastering light at the nanoscale and for demonstrating novel applications in nanoscale optical circuits, photovoltaics, and super-resolution imaging". The prize will be awarded at the forthcoming 6th International Topical Meeting on Nanophotonics and Metamaterials (Nanometa) to be held in Seefeld, Austria from January 4-7, 2017.

Albert Polman is a scientific group leader at the FOM Institute AMOLF in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and professor of photonic materials for photovoltaics at the University of Amsterdam. Polman obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Utrecht in 1989, was a post-doctoral researcher at AT&T Bell Laboratories until 1991, and then became a scientific group leader at AMOLF. From 2006-2013 he also served as director of AMOLF.

Polman is one of the early pioneers in the research area of nanophotonics. His research group focuses on the realization of nanoscale metamaterials with tailored optical properties that do not exist in nature. He also designs and fabricates novel photovoltaic architectures with enhanced power conversion efficiency based on semiconductor and dielectric metasurfaces. Polman’s group is the inventor of angle-resolved cathodoluminescence microscopy, that is, a novel super-resolution microscopy technique that creates images with 10 nanometer resolution. The instrument is brought on the market by the start-up Delmic, which Polman co-founded.

Polman is an elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), Fellow of the Materials Research Society (MRS) and the Optical Society of America (OSA), and recipient of two ERC Advanced Investigator Grants (2011, 2016), the Physica Prize of the Dutch Physical Society (2014), the Julius Springer Award for Applied Physics (2014), the ENI Renewable Energy Prize (2012), and the MRS Materials Innovation and Characterization Award (2012).