Since January 2012 Prof. Andreas Wallraff is a Full Professor for Solid State Physics in the Department of Physics at ETH Zurich. He joined the department in January 2006 as a Tenure Track Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in January 2010. Previously, he has obtained degrees in physics from Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, U.K., Rheinisch Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen, Germany and did research towards his Masters degree at the Research Center Jülich, Germany.
During his doctoral research he investigated the quantum dynamics of vortices in superconductors and observed for the first time the tunneling and energy level quantization of an individual vortex for which he obtained a PhD degree in physics from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.
During the four years he spent as a research scientist at Yale University in New Haven, CT, USA he performed experiments in which the coherent interaction of a single photon with a single quantum electronic circuit was observed for the first time.
His research is focused on the experimental investigation of quantum effects in superconducting electronic circuits for performing fundamental quantum optics experiments and for applications in quantum information processing. His group at ETH Zurich engages in research on micro and nano-electronics, with a particular focus on hybrid quantum systems combining superconducting electronic circuits with semiconductor quantum dots and individual Rydberg atoms, making use of fast and sensitive microwave techniques at ultra-low temperatures.
Prof. Andreas Wallraff received the Nicholas Kurti European Science Prize in March 2006 in recognition of a record of sustained achievement working at the forefront of quantum device research employing experimental low-temperature techniques. In 2009 he was awarded the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Independent Research Grant to work on hybrid cavity quantum electrodynamics with atoms and circuits. In 2011 Andreas Wallraff was awarded the ETH Zurich Max Roessler Prize. In 2013 Andreas Wallraff received an ERC Advanced Grant to perform research on quantum communication in the microwave domain.