Rate My Professor Jeremy Baumberg

Professor Jeremy Baumberg is the Harold Aspden Professor of Fundamental Physics and Professor of Nanophotonics in the Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge. He earned a BA Honours from Jesus College, Cambridge in 1988 and a DPhil from Jesus College, Oxford in 1992. Joining the University of Cambridge in 2007, he established and directs the Nanophotonics Centre, the Nano Doctoral Training Centre (NanoDTC), and the NanoForum Strategic Research Network. Baumberg has led interdisciplinary nano-centres at the Universities of Cambridge and Southampton, developed novel devices at Hitachi and IBM, and founded spin-out companies Mesophotonics and Base4. He is a Fellow of Jesus College, chairs the UK Research and Innovation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and serves as an advisor to ARIA. A leader in nanoscience and nanotechnology at the academia-industry interface, his career spans experimental techniques in plasmonics, ultrafast dynamics of magnetic semiconductors, coherent control in solids, and semiconductor microcavities.

Baumberg's research specializes in nanophotonics, focusing on nanostructured optical materials that exhibit unusual interactions with light, including kilometre-scale polymer opals, extreme light confinement to sub-atomic volumes for single-molecule and reaction probing, plasmonic nanocavities, and bio/environmental sensing via nanoparticle assemblies. Notable publications include 'Single-molecule strong coupling at room temperature in plasmonic nanocavities' (Nature, 2016), 'Room-temperature polariton lasing in semiconductor microcavities' (Physical Review Letters, 2007), 'Microcavities' (Oxford University Press, 2017), and 'Present and future of surface-enhanced Raman scattering' (ACS Nano, 2019), contributing to over 58,000 citations. His achievements have earned the Royal Society Rumford Medal (2014), Institute of Physics Faraday Medal (2017) and Young Medal (2013), Royal Society Mullard Prize (2005), ERC Advanced Grant (2020), Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, 2011), and Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). Baumberg's innovations support applications in Raman spectroscopy, solar cells, metamaterials, optoelectronics, and precision healthcare, such as optical sensors for dopamine detection in an 'intelligent toilet' project.