New opportunities with an old optical material: an interview with Professor Marko Lončar

Chang: How did you become interested in researching nanoscale optics? Lončar: I obtained my bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from University of Belgrade in 1997 and the same year I went to Caltech to pursue my PhD. I initially wanted to conduct research in power electronics. However, after meeting friends who were taking quantum and photonics-related courses I was intrigued... These courses sounded very interesting to me, so at the end of my first year, I switched to the group of Axel Scherer, who was working on nanofabrication and integrated optics. I started working in the field of photonic crystals, first waveguides then nanolasers, and finally nanocavities for sensing and quantum electrodynamics applications.