Stefan is the founder and managing director of nextnano GmbH, and he has an extensive academic background in physics. He earned a Master's degree from the University of Exeter and a PhD from Technische Universität München, where he specialized in Theoretical Semiconductor Physics at the Walter Schottky Institute. Throughout his academic career, he studied at various universities worldwide, including Bayreuth, Exeter, and Ohio State.

Herbert holds degrees of Bachelor of Engineering and MSc in Technical Physics with a specialisation in Nanoengineering, as well as a degree of Doctor of Sciences in Physical Sciences. His doctoral work was focused on calculations of electronic band structures and optical gain spectra of GeSn- and BGaAs-based quantum wells for integration with Si platform. Before joining nextnano in 2022, he worked as an Assistant Professor at Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, where he got involved in spectroscopy measurements and characterization of semiconductor materials. At nextnano, Herbert supports the team with his programming skills and experience in semiconductor materials.

Alex has a diverse background in Physics and Computer Science, holding multiple degrees from universities in Germany and the United States. He earned a PhD in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he focused on computational approaches to silicon-based nanostructures. Prior to joining nextnano, he worked as a Research Scientist at Science Applications International Corporation, a Senior TCAD Engineer at Intel Corporation, and an assistant professor at the Walter Schottky Institute of the Technische Universität München. Alex's expertise at nextnano includes device physics, numerical methods, and software engineering.

Oleg is a solid-state physicist born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. He holds a Master of Science Diploma in Solid State Physics from Kharkiv Polytechnic University and a PhD in Solid State Physics from the Institute of Radiophysics and Electronics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (IRE NASU). Over the years, Oleg has worked as a senior researcher at several renowned institutions and universities, including the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy; the University of Munich (LMU) in Germany; the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany; and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) in Germany. Oleg’s research interests and expertise include the physics of semiconductors, the theory of low-dimensional conductors (with a focus on electron interactions and disorder), the properties of topological insulators, and various aspects of quantum physics, such as quantum transport, quantum measurements, and quantum information. As a member of nextnano, Oleg is engaged in research and development related to such advanced topics as quantum transport and various semiconductor qubits.

Thomas is the Chairman and Research & Development Director of nextnano Lab SAS, an R&D company in Grenoble, France. He is an expert in quantum cascade laser modeling with a PhD in Physics from Université Paris VI (Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie). Prior to founding nextnano Lab SAS, he worked as the Director of Research & Development at nextnano GmbH. During his academic career, he studied at École normale supérieure de Lyon (ENS Lyon) and École normale supérieure (ENS), Paris, and conducted research on the theory of electron-phonon interaction, polaron formation, and dynamics in quantum dots.

Maria, a native of São Paulo, Brazil, earned a BSc degree in Physics, a MSc degree in Nuclear Physics, and an Electrical Engineering degree from the Universidade de São Paulo. Prior to joining nextnano, she worked as a Digital Integrated Circuit Design Engineer for the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Brazil. Currently, at nextnano, Maria leads the LED, laser diode, and nanotransistor modeling business and provides customer support.

Carola has a background in Engineering Physics and Micro- and Nanotechnology, and holds a BSc and MSc degree from the Hochschule München. During her studies, she worked on the optimization of Terahertz Quantum Cascade Lasers and experimental characterization of MEMS mirrors. In 2012, she founded a school for the deaf in Togo. At nextnano, she is in charge of developing the nextnanomat graphical user interface.

Takuma holds BSc and MSc degrees in Physics from Tohoku University in Japan and is currently enrolled as a PhD student in Electrical Engineering at the Technische Universität München. He has studied magnetoelastic coupling and spintronics in insulators during his Master's degree and worked as an intern in our R&D team in 2019-2020, developing tutorials on various topics. Since May 2021, he has been developing the nextnano.NEGF software for Interband Cascade Lasers as part of the EU Innovative Training Network QUANTIMONY.

Heorhii holds a BSc degree in Applied Physics and Energy Systems from the National Technical University of Ukraine and a MSc degree in Material Science from an Erasmus Mundus programme. At nextnano, he is working on R&D, focusing on the modeling of germanium-silicon Quantum-Confined-Stark-Effect electro-absorption modulators (EAM) within our EU project SiPHO-G and on the nextnanopy Python package.

Lucie holds a MSc in condensed matter physics and optics from Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1. Currently, she is pursuing a PhD in physics at Technische Universität Berlin under the Marie Curie program Quantimony. Her research focuses on the simulation and optimization of Sb-based semiconductor devices, with a particular emphasis on quantum dots and quantum rings. At nextnano, she is involved in developing the optimization module, nextnanoevo.

Jörg earned his Diplom degree in Computer Science from the University of Bonn, Germany, where he conducted research on robotics and artificial intelligence for his diploma thesis. Since 1999, he has worked as a software developer for a German television channel. At nextnano, he works part-time as a cloud computing expert, with a focus on integrating HTCondor, Azure, and AWS into our graphical user interface..

Kaisei Furudate holds a BEng degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Tohoku University in Japan. He is currently studying toward his Master of Engineering. He is interested in semiconductor devices, nanotechnology and numerical modeling. At nextnano, he is doing an R&D research internship via the 1-year program “Vulcanus in Europa 2024-2025” of the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation.

Click here to view a list of all our previous staff members.
We are immensely grateful to our former team members who contributed to the development of both the software and the company.