Prof. T.H.M. Rasing (Theo)

Prof. Theo Rasing is an expert in the development of new optical techniques for research and manipulation of materials at the molecular and nanometer scale. An appealing example of this is the switching (reversing) of a magnet with an extremely short laser pulse. This fundamental discovery can lead to an increase in the writing speed of computer data by more than a factor of 1000. He received the Spinoza premium for this in 2008 and an ERC Advanced Grant in 2013. Rasing also makes great efforts to bring science to the attention of the general public and schools and with his dancing atoms he competed for the first Academic Annual Prize. In recent years he has also been working on making data storage and processing more energy-efficient, using the brain as a source of inspiration. For this purpose he was awarded an ERC Synergy Grant in 2019, together with German colleagues.