Rate My Professor Harald Schwefel

Professor Harald Schwefel holds the position of Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Otago, where he joined in September 2015 and reestablished his research laboratory. He began his physics training at Brandenburg Technical University in Cottbus, Germany, earning Vordiplom degrees in Physics and Mathematics in 1998. Schwefel then pursued graduate studies at Yale University, USA, obtaining an MPhil in Physics in 2002 and a PhD in theoretical physics in 2004 with a thesis on chaotic dielectric resonators. Following a short stay in Japan, he worked as an experimental physicist and group leader at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Germany, completing his Habilitation at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in 2014.

Schwefel leads the Resonant Optics research group at the University of Otago and serves as Deputy Director Science and Principal Investigator at the Te Whai Ao – Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies, as well as a Principal Investigator in Quantum Technologies Aotearoa. His research centers on the interaction of light and matter in dielectric materials, focusing on resonantly enhanced nonlinear optics and optical frequency conversion using ultra-high quality whispering gallery mode resonators fabricated from crystalline materials. This enables nonlinear interactions between widely spaced frequency bands, including microwave-to-optical conversion, terahertz photonics, optical frequency combs, and sensing applications across UV, visible, microwave, and THz domains. Key publications include 'Coherent control of magnon–polaritons using an exceptional point' (Nature Physics, 2025), 'Newton's rings for absolute distance measurement' (Optics Letters, 2025), 'Multichannel upconversion of terahertz radiation in an optical disk resonator' (Optics Express, 2025), 'Bidirectional Electro-Optic Wavelength Conversion in the Quantum Ground State' (2020), and 'Coherent Conversion Between Microwave and Optical Photons—An Overview of Physical Implementations' (2020). Schwefel has received a Google Academic Research Award of US$50,000 in 2024 to advance quantum technologies and a Marsden Fund grant of $941,000 in 2024 with Dr. Nicholas Lambert for exceptional control of quantum states using non-Hermitian physics and magnon-polaritons. He delivered his Inaugural Professorial Lecture titled 'Resonating with light' in May 2025. His scholarly work has accumulated over 4,500 citations.