Nava SetterNava Setter completed MSc in Civil Engineering in the Technion (Israel) and PhD in Solid State Science in Penn. State University (USA) (1980). After post-doctoral work at the Universities of Oxford (UK) and Geneva (Switzerland), she joined an R&D institute in Haifa (Israel) where she became the head of the Electronic Ceramics Lab (1988). She began her affiliation with EPFL in 1989 as the Director of the Ceramics Laboratory, becoming Full Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in 1992. She had been Head of the Materials Department in the past and more recently has served as the Director of the Doctoral School for Materials.
Research at the Ceramics Laboratory, which Nava Setter directs, concerns the science and technology of functional ceramics focusing on piezoelectric and related materials: ferroelectrics, dielectrics, pyroelectrics and also ferromagnetics. The work includes fundamental and applied research and covers the various scales from the atoms to the final devices. Emphasis is given to micro- and nano-fabrication technology with ceramics and coupled theoretical and experimental studies of the functioning of ferroelectrics.
Her own research interests include ferroelectrics and piezoelectrics: in particular the effects of interfaces, finite-size and domain-wall phenomena, as well as structure-property relations and the pursuit of new applications. The leading thread in her work over the years has been the demonstration of how basic or fundamental concepts in materials - particularly ferroelectrics - can be utilized in a new way and/or in new types of devices. She has published over 450 scientific and technical papers.
Nava Setter is a Fellow of the Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and the World Academy of Ceramics. Among the awards she received are the Swiss-Korea Research Award, the ISIF outstanding achievement award, and the Ferroelectrics-IEEE recognition award. In 2010 her research was recognized by the European Union by the award of an ERC Advanced Investigator Grant. Recently she received the IEEE-UFFC Achievement Award (2011),the W.R. Buessem Award(2011), the Robert S. Sosman Award Lecture (American Ceramics Society) (2013), and the American Vacuum Society Recognition for Excellence in Leadership (2013).
Nicolas GrandjeanNicolas Grandjean received a PhD degree in physics from the University ofNice Sophia Antipolis in 1994 and shortly thereafter joined the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) as a permanent staff member. In 2004, he was appointed tenure-track assistant professor at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) where he created the Laboratory for advanced semiconductors for photonics and electronics. He was promoted to full professor in 2009. He was the director of the Institute of Condensed Matter Physics from 2012 to 2016 and then moved to the University of California at Santa Barbara where he spent 6 months as a visiting professor. Since 2018, he is the head of the School of Physics at the EPFL. He was awarded the Sandoz Family Foundation Grant for Academic Promotion, received the “Nakamura Lecturer” Award in 2010, the "Quantum Devices Award” at the 2017 Compound Semiconductor Week, and “2016 best teacher” award from the EPFL Physics School. His research interests are focused on the physics of nanostructures and III-V nitride semiconductor quantum photonics.
Alexander TagantsevALEXANDER K. TAGANTSEV received the B.S. degree from St. Petersburg State University, in 1974, and Ph.D. degree from Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1982 in solid state physics. Before 1993, he worked in Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute, (1991-1993, head of laboratory), and St. Petersburg State Technical University (1991-1993, professor). He joined the ceramics laboratory of EPFL in 1993 where he was leading ( up to 2016) the section for Modeling and theory of Electroceramics. He is also currently engaged as a principle research fellow at Ioffe institute (St. Petersburg, Russia). Tagantsev is a theoretician of a broad domain of expertise from ferroelectricity and phonon physics to electrodynamics of superconductors and quantum optics. He is the author of key results on the theory of microwave dielectrics loss, dielectric polarization in crystalline materials, and relaxor ferroelectricity. He is also known in the field of ferroelectric thin films for elucidating works on the polarization switching and degradation in these systems. He authored or co-authored more than 300 scientific articles and two monograph (on domains in ferroics and tunable film bulk acoustic wave resonators). In 2007, Prof. Tagantsev was entitled to the Honors for lifetime achievement in the field of integrated ferroelectrics by the International Symposium on Integrated Ferroelectrics.
Luc ThévenazLuc Thévenaz received in 1982 the M.Sc. degree in astrophysics from the Observatory of Geneva, Switzerland, and in 1988 the Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He developed at this moment his field of expertise, i.e. fibre optics. In 1988 he joined the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne (EPFL) where he currently leads a research group involved in photonics, namely fibre optics and optical sensing. Research topics include Brillouin-scattering fibre sensors, nonlinear fibre optics, slow & fast light and laser spectroscopy in gases. His main achievements are: - the invention of a novel configuration for distributed Brillouin fibre sensing based on a single laser source, resulting in a high intrinsic stability making for the first time field measurements possible, - the development of a photoacoustic gas trace sensor using a near infra-red semiconductor laser, detecting a gas concentration at the ppb level, - the first experimental demonstration of optically-controlled slow & fast light in optical fibres, realized at ambient temperature and operating at any wavelength since based on stimulated Brillouin scattering. The first negative group velocity of light was also realized in optical fibres using this approach. In 1991, he visited the PUC University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where he worked on the generation of picosecond pulses in semiconductor lasers. In 1991-1992 he stayed at Stanford University, USA, where he participated in the development of a Brillouin laser gyroscope. He joined in 1998 the company Orbisphere Laboratories SA in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, as Expert Scientist to develop gas trace sensors based on photoacoustic laser spectroscopy. In 1998 and 1999 he visited the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejon, South Korea, where he worked on fibre laser current sensors. In 2000 he co-founded the spin-off company Omnisens that is developing and commercializing advanced photonic instrumentation. In 2007 he visited Tel Aviv University where he studied the all-optical control of polarization in optical fibres. During winter 2010 he stayed at the University of Sydney where he studied applications of stimulated Brillouin scattering in chalcogenide waveguides. In 2014 he stayed at the Polytechnic University of Valencia where he worked on microwave applications of stimulated Brillouin scattering. He was member of the Consortium in the FP7 European Project GOSPEL "Governing the speed of light", was Chairman of the European COST Action 299 "FIDES: Optical Fibres for New Challenges Facing the Information Society" and is author or co-author of some 480 publications and 12 patents. He is now Coordinator of the H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks FINESSE (FIbre NErve Systems for Sensing). He is co-Executive Editor-in-Chief of the journal "Nature Light: Science & Applications" and is Member of the Editorial Board (Associate Editor) for the journal "APL Photonics" & "Laser & Photonics Reviews". He is also Fellow of both the IEEE and the Optical Society (OSA).
Olivier MartinOlivier J.F. Martin received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in physics in 1989 and 1994, respectively, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. In 1989, he joined IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, where he investigated thermal and optical properties of semiconductor laser diodes. Between 1994 and 1997 he was a research staff member at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETHZ). In 1997 he received a Lecturer fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). During the period 1996-1999, he spent a year and a half in the U.S.A., as invited scientist at the University of California in San Diego (UCSD). In 2001 he received a Professorship grant from the SNSF and became Professor of Nano-Optics at the ETHZ. In 2003, he was appointed Professor of Nanophotonics and Optical Signal Processing at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL), where he is currently head of the Nanophotonics and Metrology Laboratory and Director of the Microengineering Section.
Dragan DamjanovicDragan Damjanovic received BSc diploma in Physics from the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Sarajevo, in 1980, and PhD in Ceramics Science from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, the Pennsylvania State University (PSU) in 1987. From 1988 to 1991 he was a research associate in the Materials Research Laboratory at the PSU. He joined the Ceramics Laboratory, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne in 1991. He is currently a "professeur titulaire", heads the Group for Ferroelectrics and Functional Oxides at the Institute of Materials and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on structure and electrical properties of materials. The research activities include fundamental and applied investigations of piezoelectric, ferroelectric and dielectric properties of a broad class of materials.
