About
Otto Muskens received his PhD in 2004 at the University of Utrecht and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher at CNRS in Bordeaux, Philips Research Eindhoven and the AMOLF institute in Amsterdam. Since 2009 he leads the Integrated Nanophotonics Group in Southampton, where from 2012-2017 he held a prestigious EPSRC Early Career fellowship on the development of complex photonic networks for controlling light. He is an investigator in the Southampton Centre for Photonic Metamaterials and associated Program Grant and member of the Zepler Clean Room management committee. In 2016 he held the Debye visiting chair at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands. His research has received >4500 citations (full record on Google Scholar) and >£3M of PI grants from EPRSC, Horizon 2020, Royal Society, Leverhulme Trust, and Dstl. Recent activities include editor at Optics Express, organisation of the Complex Nanophotonics Science Camp, top 1% peer reviewer at Publons and top 6% reviewer at EPSRC Peer Review college.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Programmable photonic circuits using ultralow loss phase change materials.
- Infrared metasurfaces for radiative cooling and defence applications.
- Deep learning and AI enabled nanophotonic design.
- Ultrafast spectroscopy of nanophotonic devices.
- Development of a wafer scale probe station for silicon photonics testing
Current research
The Integrated Nanophotonics group aims to develop fundamental understanding and new applications of nanophotonics integrated in diverse fields ranging from silicon photonics to cell biology. Important elements of our work are plasmonic nanostructures, nanowires, and complex nanophotonic networks. The team consists of 8 PhD students and 4 Postdoctoral researchers and each year hosts a number of undergraduate research projects and summer studentships.
Funded research projects:
- Horizon 2020, SMART-FLEX: development of flexible coatings for radiative cooling of spacecraft (2019-2021)
- European Space Agency Innovation Triangle Network, Hiper-OSR (2018-2020)
- Leverhulme Trust Research Grant, Extraordinary nonlinearities of light in complex systems (2019-2021)
- Dstl / DASA Research Grant, MultiMeta: Infrared Metasurfaces using Metal-Oxide Plasmonics (2018-2019)
- EPSRC Program Grant, Physics and Technology of Metadevices and Metasystems (2016-2021)
- EPSRC Grant, Maximising use of Chameleon Ultra II laser system (2019-2020)
- EPSRC-Dstl CASE Conversion project, Development of mid-infrared light detection and ranging (LiDAR) for fast response in a dynamic environment (2018-2022)
Research projects
Active projects
Completed projects
Publications
Teaching
- Module coordinator of PHYS2015, Introduction to Energy in the Environment.
- Module coordinator of PHYS2007, Medical Physics.
- Deputy for PHYS6008, Physics from Evidence II (year 3 labs) and PHYS1017, Physics Skills 1 (year 1 labs).
Biography
Otto Muskens received his PhD in 2004 at the University of Utrecht and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher at CNRS in Bordeaux, Philips Research Eindhoven and the AMOLF institute in Amsterdam. Since 2009 he leads the Integrated Nanophotonics Group in Southampton. He was promoted to a personal chair in 2014. In 2016 he held the Debye visiting chair at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands. Since 2020 he is head of group of Quantum, Light and Matter in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.