Ewold Verhagen is part-time professor of nano-optomechanics in the Photonics and Semiconductor Nanophysics group at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). He also leads a research group at the NWO institute AMOLF (www.optomechanics.nl). His areas of expertise include electromagnetism, optics, acoustics, nanophotonics and optomechanics.  

Ewold studies light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. He is particularly interested in the interactions between light and nanomechanical motion, the applications of field enhancement in micro-/nanocavities and plasmonic resonators, and efficient coupling of light to subwavelength volumes.

Particular research interests include the coupling between photons and phonons in nano-optomechanical systems. His interests include the quantum measurement and control of mechanical motion, non-reciprocity induced by radiation pressure, plasmonic optomechanical sensors, hybrid optomechanical systems, and the physics of photonic and plasmonic resonators.

Ewold Verhagen holds PhD (with honors) and an MSc in Physics from Utrecht University. He performed his PhD research at the NWO institute AMOLF in Amsterdam, working on subwavelength light concentration, negative index metamaterials, and enhanced light-matter interactions in nanophotonic systems. His PhD thesis received the Dutch Physics Thesis Award and the FOM Valorization Chapter Award. From 2010, he worked as a Rubicon and Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).

Since 2013, Ewold leads the Photonic Forces research group at AMOLF. His group studies photonics in high-quality microcavities and nanophotonic waveguides, with a special interest in the coupling between light and nanomechanical motion through radiation pressure forces in nanophotonic systems. He participates in several national and European academic consortia and public-private partnerships, and is a member of the board of NanoLabNL, a Dutch national facility providing open-access infrastructure for R&D in nanotechnology. He is recipient of an NWO Vidi grant (2014) and an ERC Starting Grant (2017).