New Junior Professor

Since September 1, 2021, Dr. Thomas Kissinger is junior professor and head of the new department "Nanofabrication and Nanometrology" at the Institute for Process Measurement and Sensor Technology of the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Thomas Kissinger studied physics (Dipl. Phys) at the University of Würzburg and in parallel information and communication technology (BSc) at the Open University of Hagen. Afterwards, he worked for two years in industry, where he was intensively involved in optical nanomessing and positioning technology. From 2011 to 2016, he completed his PhD at Cranfield University in the UK in the field of optical interferometry. His PhD, entitled "Range-resolved optical interferometric signal processing", received the "Lord Kings Norton Medal" dissertation award from Cranfield University in 2016. Thomas Kissinger was also employed there as a Research Associate and Post-Doc since 2014, and as a Lecturer since 2018, and was also awarded a prestigious Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship. Highlights of his time at Cranfield have included, in particular, research into high-precision interferometric measurement devices for challenging environments, e.g. helicopter wings or robots, as well as the transfer of his research results to three companies to date, some of them start-ups.

Future research priorities of the department are in particular the increase of positional and trajectory accuracy of precision machines for nanometer-precise production and analysis technology. In this context, basic research on high-precision methods as well as research on more cost-effective approaches with a broad utilization potential will be carried out. Furthermore, applications of interferometric measurements in fiber optics, pressure and force sensing as well as interferometric imaging will be investigated.