Cristina Benea-Chelmus wins 2025 Fresnel Prize
Cristina Benea-Chelmus. EPFL CC BY SA 4.0
Ileana-Cristina Benea-Chelmus, head of the Hybrid Photonics Lab in EPFL's School of Engineering, has been selected to receive the 2025 Fresnel Prize for Applied Aspects from the European Physical Society for her contributions to terahertz and microwave photonics.
Every two years, two Fresnel Prizes are awarded for outstanding contributions to quantum electronics and optics made by young scientists under 35. One prize is awarded for fundamental aspects, and one prize for applied aspects. Prize winners each receive a medal and 2000 euros.
This year, HYLAB head Ileana-Cristina Benea-Chelmus has been selected to receive the Fresnel Prize for Applied Aspects, for her "contributions to terahertz and microwave photonics, including the development of integrated electro-optic platforms for field correlation sensing, high-speed modulators, and miniaturized on-chip detectors for classical and quantum domains, bridging applied and fundamental physics."
As an assistant professor of microengineering in EPFL's Institute of Electro and Microengineering since 2022, Benea-Chelmus's research aims to exploit interaction of high frequency waves (microwave or terahertz) with light mediated by nonlinear materials. She seeks to invent and innovate future hybrid optical technologies to reach terahertz speeds by on-chip integration and photonic design, e.g. in (quantum) metrology, precision sensing and reconfigurable photonics. She is currently Deputy Director of EPFL’s Center for Quantum Science and Engineering (QSE), and a Research Associate affiliated with the group of Federico Capasso at Harvard University.
The 2025 Fresnel Prizes will be given at the CLEO Europe conference on optics and photonics, to be held from June 23-27 in Munich, Germany.