Prof. Dr. Andreas Wallraff

Andreas Wallraff has joined the Department of Physics at ETH Zurich in January 2006 as an Assistant Professor for Solid State Physics. He obtained his undergraduate education from Rheinisch Westfaelische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen, Germany and Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, U.K. where he received the Imperial College International Diploma in Physics (B. Sc. equivalent) in 1994. From 1995 to 1996 he joined the Forschungszentrum Juelich, Germany to perform research on solitons and microwave generation using Josephson vortex oscillators. In 1997 he graduated from RWTH Aachen with a diploma in physics (M. Sc. equivalent). In 1997 Andreas Wallraff moved to the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg to join, as the first member, the newly formed group of Alexey Ustinov at the Institute for Experimental Physics. At Erlangen he experimentally investigated soliton and vortex dynamics in superconductors in both the classical and quantum regimes and observed for the first time the energy level quantization and the quantum tunneling of individual vortices. For his work he was awarded a Ph.D. (dt. Dr. rer. nat.) from the University of Erlangen in 2000. After his Ph.D. he continued his work in Erlangen initially as a Research Scientist and later as an Assistant Professor (dt. Assistent, C1) to start the group's research effort on quantum information processing. In 2002 Andreas Wallraff joined the Department of Applied Physics at Yale University as a Postdoctoral Associate with Robert Schoelkopf and Michel Devoret where he engaged in research on quantum optics and quantum information processing with superconducting electronic circuits at low temperatures and microwave frequencies. In his research at Yale Andreas Wallraff and collaborators demonstrated for the first time the coherent coupling of an individual photon to a single quantum two-level system in an integrated solid state device. This achievement made the field of quantum optics accessible in the domain superconducting circuits and has already stimulated a wealth of new research in quantum optics, quantum information processing and quantum information science. In 2004 Andreas Wallraff was appointed as an Associate Research Scientist to the faculty of the Department of Applied Physics at Yale University. In June 2005 Andreas Wallraff has been elected Tenure-Track Assistant Professor for Solid State Physics at ETH Zurich.

In march 2006 Andreas Wallraff received the Nicholas Kurti European Science Prize in recognition of a record of sustained achievement working at the forefront of quantum device research employing experimental low-temperature techniques. 'The award honors Andreas Wallraff for his decisive and innovative experiments on quantum mechanical effects in superconducting circuits, combining low-noise electronics, ultra-low temperatures and microwave techniques -- work that he began during his postgraduate and postdoctoral years at the University of Erlangen-Nurnberg and has continued at Yale. His work has had an impact on the fields of superconducting devices and quantum mechanics of macroscopic solid state systems and has advanced the state of the art for quantum information processing using superconducting circuits.'

At ETH his new group engages in research quantum optics and quantum information processing with superconducting circuits using large bandwidth, sensitive microwave techniques at ultra-low temperatures. His group makes use of the excellent device fabrication infrastructure provided at ETH within the clean room facilities of the FIRST laboratory. His group also enjoys collaborations with colleagues at ETH working on semiconductor quantum dots, mesoscopic physics, atomic cavity QED and single molecule spectroscopy and is integrated into the program Quantum Systems for Information Technology (QSIT) at ETH.