Prof. Martijn de Sterke

E-mail desterke@physics.usyd.edu.au

Qualifications
B. Eng. Applied Physics, Delft (Netherlands), 1981. M. Eng. Applied Physics, Delft (Netherlands), 1982. Ph.D., Optics, Univ. Rochester (USA) 1988.

Current appointment
School of Physics, University of Sydney, Reader, 1999-present.

Employment History
Senior Lecturer (1995-1999), Lecturer (1991-1994), University of Sydney, Research Fellow (1987-1990), University of Toronto.

Major Awards
Pawsey Medal, Australian Academy of Sciences (1999); Fellow, Optical Society of America (2002); M. Eng awarded cum laude.

Professional Association
Associate Editor, Optics Express. Technical Program Committee memberships: Workshop on Novel Solitons and Nonlinear Optics and Lasers (Victoria, Canada, 1998), Nonlinear Guided Wave Workshop (Dyon, France, 1999). Conference Organising Committee membership: IUTAM 99/4 (Sydney, 1999).

Expertise
Martijn de Sterke is a theoretical physicist, whose approach to his research is characterized by actively seeking collaborations with experimentalists. He has authored papers in the fields of optics and photonics, solid state physics, and acoustics, and these papers have appeared both in the physics and in the engineering literature. In optics he has worked on a variety of problems in the areas of nonlinear optics (soliton physics, nonlinear propagation, numerical methods, optical frequency conversion, parametric amplification), wave propagation in random media, guided-wave optics, coupling of co- and contra-propagating modes in one-dimensional periodic media, photonic crystals, microstructured optical fibres, self-written gratings and waveguides, and optical Bloch oscillations. Highlights of his publication record include: development of the theory of grating solitons, including the coupling of these solitons, the nonlinear theory of deep gratings; first experimental verification of these solitons, and the definitive experimental paper; definitive paper on the theory of Hill gratings; theory and first observation of self-writing of waveguides in glass; first calculation of local density of states in realistic photonic crystals for determining radiation dynamics; first study of birefringence, structural losses and the nature of modal cut-offs in microstructured optical fibres; first calculation of the modes of microstructured optical fibres with high-index inclusions; first general theory of frequency conversion in two-dimensionally poled structures, and the general optimization of these poling patterns; first general theory of dynamic localization in semiconductors under an applied uniform AC fields; and proposal and experimental verification of grating-dispersion inverted interference devices.