Director
Laurens Kuipers, better known as Kobus Kuipers, is a scientist in the field of nanooptics and light-matter interactions in nanosystems. He is in particular known for the investigation and visualization of (slow) light in complex photonic nanostructures, including plasmonic structures and photonic crystals. Several achievements of his early work are already used in graduate courses and textbooks (e.g. Principles of Nano-Optics, by Lukas Novotny & Bert Hecht, Cambridge University Press 2006). He has studied many different aspects of light at the nanoscale. His work includes the measurement of photonic band structures, enabled by the direct access to nanoscale light he has mastered. By tracking femtosecond pulses in time and space he was also able to not only observe ultraslow light but also demonstrate the unwanted side effects of the increased light-matter interaction associated with slow light: enhanced scattering and ultimately, in one-dimensional waveguides, Anderson localization.