Hello, you have reached the webpage of
Ole Steuernagel
I work mostly on theoretical
optics.
Recently there has been some media interest in Daniel Polani's and my
work on "How to kill persistent bugs":
(
10.1109/TEVC.2010.2040181 arXiv:q-bio/0512003v2).
Here is a link detailing some of the
Media Echo.
I got started on
classical wave optics
when I tried to understand
Gouy's phase
which is known to render laser beams isomorphic to
the wave description of quantum harmonic oscillators.
The animation
shows the intensity inversion at the focus of a coherent laser beam due to the
action of Gouy's phase.
You can almost 'see' how wave optics gives rise to ray optics...
In my wave optics work I explore effects
in multimode laser beams: some of it has been verified experimentally (in
collaboration with Miles Pagett's group).
In my quantum optics work I am mostly interested in fundamental limits of optics such as Afshar's paradox, which I helped to resolve. I am also interested in the limits of interferometry to determine path length differences, or the limits of interferometry for quantum imaging: this latter scheme has actually been implemented experimentally by Takeuchi's group and a very similar one by Zeilinger's group.
A related topic I was interested in is quantum lithography. I have shown that it can unfortunately not work because photons cannot be spatially concentrated, these considerations have been beautifully generalized by Tsang's work on limits for multi-photon absorption.
A link between my quantum and wave optics work is formed by work on atom optics. Recently, I developed an idea to create superpositions of laser beams in order to design a lens for atom beams with large numerical aperture arXiv:0810.4486v2 Phys. Rev. A (2009).
I also have an interest in complex systems, such as traffic and 'traffic' and biological systems (How to kill persistent bugs: arXiv:q-bio/0512003v1). The paper on killing persistent bugs has received some coverage recently Nine_OClock_Show_Ronnie_Barbour__BBC_ThreeCountiesRadio.mp3.
Contact
Dr Ole Steuernagel
STRI
University of Hertfordshire
Hatfield, Herts AL10 9AB, UK
T: +44 (0) 1707 284600
F: +44 (0) 1707 284185
E: O.Steuernagel 
herts.ac.uk