Every year, the American Physical Society (APS) recognizes a handful of members for their outstanding and unique contributions to the advancement of physics research. Physicists are carefully evaluated and elected as a Fellow by the APS council after being nominated by their professional peers.

This year, Prof Manfred Helm from the Institute for Applied Physics at TUD Dresden University of Technology and Director at the Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Material Research at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has been awarded this distinct honor. His research is mainly focused on the electronic and optical properties of semiconductors and semiconductor nanostructures. The election of Manfred Helm as an APS Fellow is in recognition of his groundbreaking research on terahertz (THz) spectroscopy of nanomaterials, development of THz sources, and his contributions to the physics of semiconductor superlattices and intersubband transitions in quantum structures. The physicist has also been acknowledged for his leading role in the research with an infrared free-electron laser at HZDR. For Prof Helm, “it is a great honor that my research has been recognised internationally, especially in the USA,” and he feels “great gratitude towards all those with whom I was allowed to work over four decades.”

After completing his Ph.D. at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, Manfred Helm went on to work as a researcher for the American company Bellcore in New Jersey. He later returned to Austria to complete his habilitation at the University of Linz, where he stayed as an Associate Professor. Since 2000, Manfred Helm has taken the role of Full Professor in the Institute of Applied Physics at TUD as well as Director at the Institute for Ion Beam Physics and Materials research at HZDR. He is an author on over 500 publications and has received numerous prestigious awards for his work, now including the esteemed APS Fellowship.