Paderborn University physicist Junior Professor Tim Bartley has been awarded an ‘ERC Starting Grant’ from the European Research Council (ERC) – one of the most prestigious awards in the field of science in Europe. The ERC is a body of the European Commission for funding leading international research. As part of ‘Horizon Europe’, the European Union’s research framework programme, the grants aim to encourage and support frontier research in Europe, on the basis of scientific excellence. The highly endowed ‘Starting Grant’ supports particularly promising scientists who are at the beginning of an independent research career.
To help fund his work in the field of quantum optics, the Paderborn scientist will receive approximately €1.8 million over the next five years. Bartley stood out for his project ‘Quantum Engineering Superconducting Array Detectors in Low-Light Applications’ (QuESADILLA), which aims to develop high-performance single-photon detectors and to configure their quantum mechanical detector responses for a variety of precision measurement tasks.
Bartley heads up the ‘Mesoscopic Quantum Optics’ research group at Paderborn University, which focuses on, among other things, the development of photonic components for scalable quantum technologies. The goal of the research is to build ever-larger quantum systems, to facilitate the performance of specific computing, communications and sensing tasks.
“It is a great honour to receive this award. I’m very much looking forward to being able to carry out the exciting research that this award now enables us to do,” says Bartley.
