Igor Aharonovich

Igor Aharonovich (born 1982) is an Australian physicist and materials engineer. He is an associate professor at the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Igor researchers optically active defects in solids, with an overarching goal to identify new generation of solid state quantum emitters. His main contributions include discovery of new color centers in diamond and hexagonal boron nitride.

Career

Igor received his B.Sc. (2005) and M.Sc. (2007) from the department of Materials Engineering at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology under the supervision of Prof Yeshayahu Lifshitz. He then moved to Australia to pursue his PhD at the University of Melbourne under the supervision of Prof Steven Prawer. During his PhD, Igor studied new color centers in diamond and discovered the brightest single-photon source known at that time. After completion of his PhD in December 2010, Igor moved to Harvard for two years of postdoctoral training in the group of Prof Evelyn Hu.

In 2013, he returned to Australia to establish the nanophotonics research group at UTS, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2015. His group explores new quantum emitters in wide bandgap materials and aims to fabricate quantum nanophotonic devices on a single chip for next generation of quantum computing, quantum cryptography and quantum bio-sensing. In 2016 Aharonovich lead his team to discover the first quantum emitter in 2D materials that operates in room temperature. Aharonovich co-authored more than 100 peer reviewed publications, including one of the most cited reviews on diamond photonics and more recently wrote a road map for solid state single-photon sources.

Honors and awards

• 2017 IUPAP Young Scientist Award for the Commission on Laser Physics and Photonics
• 2017 Pawsey Medal
• 2016 IEEE Photonics Young Investigator Award
• 2016 Humboldt Research Fellowship for experienced researchers
• 2015 New South Wales Young Tall Poppy Award
• 2013 Geoff Opat Early Career Researcher Prize from The Australian Optical Society