Martin Bodo Plenio
Martin Bodo Plenio ( * 1968 in Kassel, Germany ) is a German theoretical physicist who deals with quantum computer science and quantum optics.
Plenio studied at the University of Göttingen, where he became in 1994 a PhD in Theoretical Physics. He then as a post-doctoral researcher with a Fedor - Lynen Fellowship at Imperial College to Peter L. Knight was. In 1998 he was a lecturer there in 2003 and professor of quantum physics, and from 2005 Head of the quantum computer science program at Imperial College. In 2008 he received an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship, which he took up at the University of Ulm as head of the Institute for Theoretical Physics and the planned Centre for Quantum Engineering 2009.
Plenio describes his research field as a controlled quantum dynamics, manipulation, preparation and measurement of atoms and photons at the quantum level with applications for example for the technology of quantum computers. As a theorist, he works closely with experimental physicists.
In particular, he was concerned with the theory of quantum entanglement ( quantum correlations). He was involved in the development of a new quantitative access to the theory of entanglement and entanglement of various sizes 1999, he introduced to Daniel Jonathan Entanglement catalysis
With Michael Hartmann in 2007 he suggested a possible mechanism of the Mott insulator for photons before, in which photons in cavities, which are provided with excited in a certain way foreign atoms repel each other like fermions in the same quantum state. While in the solid case ensures the Coulomb repulsion of electrons in the phenomenon of Mott Insulators, here it is the interaction of photons with the impurity atoms in the cavities.
Plenio examines possible quantum effects in biological systems such as in photosynthesis or in the magnetic navigation of birds. He goes for example to the case of very efficient energy transfer in photosynthesis the extent to which noise optimizes the quantum transport.
In 2005 he was awarded the Wolfson Merit Award from the Royal Society and in 2004 the Maxwell Medal of the Institute of Physics, which he is a Fellow since 2004. In 2012 he was awarded the Max Born Prize. In 2008 he held the Clifford Paterson Lecture of the Royal Society. 2003/ 04 he was a Royal Society Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellow.
He is on the editorial board of the Proceedings of the Royal Society A, of the New Journal of Physics and Physical Review A.
He is married with physics professor Susana Huelga.
Writings
- M. B. Plenio, P. L. Knight The Quantum Jump Approach to Dissipative Dynamics in Quantum Optics, Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol 70, 1998, pp. 101-144