Since October, Markus Gräfe has been a professor of experimental solid-state quantum optics at Darmstadt Technical University’s department of physics. Previously, the 35-year-old was head of the quantum-enhanced imaging group at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF in Jena.

His research focuses on quantum imaging – that is, imaging and sensing with non-classical states of light, focusing on nonlinear interferometers, quantum walks of non-classical states of light in photonic lattice or network structures, the development of sources for non-classical states of light with a focus on photon pair sources, as well as fundamental investigations of concepts in quantum physics and quantum optics such as quantum coherence, quantum correlations, quantum entanglement, etc.

He promises his new students exciting insights into how Einstein’s ‘spooky action at a distance’ is used as a daily tool, for example, as ‘spooky imaging’ with undetected light, quantum walks and quantum simulation, sources of entangled photons for secure quantum communication, and many more.

Gräfe’s research often takes place in close collaboration with industry, both in national and international projects, such as ‘FastGhost’, with FBK from Italy and Single Quantum, LIVE2QMIC together with M-squared Lasers Germany and Picoquant, ‘Quancer’ together with Toptica, n-Hands, and Rapp Optoelectronics, or ‘Quantifisens’, a Thuringian BMBF project with a regional alliance of 13 partners, among those: Active Fiber Systems and Quantum Optics Jena.