Optical Materials Express (OMEx) serves as a forum for interdisciplinary research in current and emerging topics, attracting submissions from a wide range of materials scientists at various stages of their careers. Over the past six years, it has been our pleasure to draw special attention to the work of emerging researchers that publish in the Journal with the Emerging Researcher Best Paper Prize. We’d like to continue this tradition by announcing the recipient of the prize for 2022.

The winning paper is Tunable infrared high absorbing polarization independent niobium nitride plasmonic perfect absorber nanowire photodetectors [1], written by Philipp Karl from University of Stuttgart, Germany, and his colleagues. Their article presents a class of superconducting nanowire single photon detectors that rely on resonant plasmonic perfect absorber effects to attain high fidelity and efficiency. The selection committee was particularly impressed by the ingenuity of the proposed approach for the realization of highly efficient nanowire photodetectors, the thoroughness of the experimental analysis, and the clarity of the presentation.

This prize recognizes a student or early-career researcher (within five years of earning his/her highest degree) who is the first author of a paper that a committee of OMEx editors judged to be outstanding. The selection committee was chaired this year by Deputy Editor Alessandro Salandrino, and included associate editors Stavroula Foteinopoulou, Xing Sheng, and Robert Simpson, who represent a range of topics across the scope of the Journal. They were responsible for identifying a winner from among all the papers published in 2022 based on criteria including the scientific significance, quality, and presentation of the results.

Philipp Karl

Philipp Karl began studying physics in 2014 at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. In 2017 he received his bachelor's degree there, and in 2019 a master’s of science degree, both in low temperature physics with a focus on superconductor and correlated electron material spectroscopy. In 2020 he started his PhD studies at the same university in the group of Prof. Dr. Harald Giessen, where he is researching Nb-based plasmon-enhanced superconducting nanowire single photon detectors.

Please join us in congratulating Philipp on his selection as the winner of the 2022 Optical Materials Express Emerging Researcher Best Paper Prize!

Lastly, we would like to take this opportunity to encourage emerging researchers from all around the world to share their best results in OMEx for consideration for the 2023 Prize. We welcome your submissions and nominations.