Christoph Simon
Department Head; Professor
PhD
MSc
Contact information
Location
Courses
- PHYS 303 - Quantum Mysteries and Paradoxes
Research and teaching
Research interests
Quantum physics is simple, mysterious, and extremely successful in explaining physical phenomena. Quantum optics, which studies the interaction of light and matter at the quantum level, has been at the heart of the development of quantum physics since the beginning and is particularly well suited for probing the unique features of quantum physics such as superposition and entanglement. We use quantum optical approaches to study potential applications of these unique quantum phenomena (e.g. a future "quantum internet"), to probe whether they are universal, and to investigate whether they could play a role in biology, especially in neuroscience.
Biography
Christoph Simon studied physics at the University of Vienna, obtained a master's degree at Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, and did a PhD with Anton Zeilinger at the University of Vienna. He was a postdoc with Dirk Bouwmeester in Oxford and at UC Santa Barbara. In 2004 he obtained a permanent research position with the French National Research Center (CNRS) in Grenoble. From 2006 to 2009, he spent three years as a senior researcher in Nicolas Gisin's group at the University of Geneva, while on leave from his CNRS position. He became an associate professor at the University of Calgary in 2009, and a professor in 2016.
Dr. Simon has made significant contributions to the fields of quantum optics and quantum information, often in the form of proposals for experiments or experimental research programs. He frequently collaborates closely with experimentalists, which allows him to make proposals that are both realistic and relevant to his field at any given moment. His most significant contributions are in the fields of long-distance quantum communication (entanglement creation, quantum repeaters, entanglement purification, quantum memories) and of trying to bring quantum physics to the macroscopic level (quantum opto-mechanics, quantum amplification, multi-party entanglement).
Publications
For a complete list of publications, please visit the archival IQST website.
Awards
- 2010 - Alberta Innovates New Faculty Award, Alberta Innovates
- 2014 - Faculty of Science Research Excellence Award
- 2015 - NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- 2016 - Graduate Student Association Supervisory Excellence Award Nominee
- 2014 - Graduate Students' Association Supervisory Excellence Award Nominee