Ein Mann© M Squa­red

„Find out what you truly love doing and do it“

von viel.-Re­dak­ti­on

Nach sei­nem Ab­schluss an der FH Kiel 2006 ging er nach Großbri­tan­ni­en, blieb dort und mach­te Kar­rie­re. Am Diens­tag­abend wurde Dr. Nils Hemp­ler (38) die Den­nis Gabor Medal ver­lie­hen. Su­san­ne Meise aus der viel.-Re­dak­ti­on hat den heute in Glas­gow le­ben­den Ham­bur­ger dazu be­fragt.

 

Dr. Hemp­ler, you have been awar­ded the Den­nis Gabor Medal from the In­sti­tu­te of Phy­sics for your con­tri­bu­ti­on to phy­sics in an in­dus­tri­al con­text. Can you tell us what spe­ci­fic in­no­va­tions the prize was awar­ded for?

I was awar­ded the Den­nis Gabor Medal for seve­r­al rea­sons. I es­ta­blis­hed M Squa­red In­no­va­ti­on, con­tri­bu­ted to the UK’s na­tio­nal quan­tum tech­no­lo­gy pro­gram­me, hel­ped to com­mer­cia­li­se airy-beam light-sheet ima­ging sys­tems and de­ve­lo­ped novel che­mi­cal sen­sing mo­da­li­ties. 

I set up the in­no­va­ti­on di­vi­si­on of M Squa­red back in 2012. Since then, I have over­se­en the growth of the busi­ness, which now em­ploys 35 high-level sci­ence gra­dua­tes who focus pre­do­mi­nant­ly on open in­no­va­ti­on. The in­no­va­ti­on di­vi­si­on has been in­stru­men­tal in the fast growth of the M Squa­red busi­ness as a whole; se­cu­ring around £43 mil­li­on worth of in­vest­ment for the de­ve­lop­ment of novel tech­no­lo­gies.

The UK laun­ched the Na­tio­nal Quan­tum Tech­no­lo­gies Pro­gram­me in 2014 to de­ve­lop ad­van­ced sen­sors, clocks and com­pu­ters with un­pre­ce­den­ted le­vels of per­for­mance. M Squa­red has been in­vol­ved right from the start by sup­ply­ing la­sers to sup­port re­se­ar­chers in the field, as well as de­ve­lo­ping novel quan­tum sys­tems through its In­no­va­ti­on di­vi­si­on. I have cham­pio­ned the de­ve­lop­ment of new de­vices that rely on quan­tum ef­fects, such as quan­tum entangle­ment and su­per­po­si­ti­on, to crea­te a quan­tum gravi­me­ter and quan­tum ac­ce­lero­me­ter. Our skills and ex­per­ti­se in this area have hel­ped to po­si­ti­on M Squa­red at the heart of the emer­ging UK quan­tum sup­ply chain.

In the area of light-sheet mi­cro­sco­py, I was in­vol­ved in ta­king a new ap­proach to bio­me­di­cal ima­ging from the Uni­ver­si­ty of St. An­drews and trans­la­ted it into a new di­vi­si­on of M Squa­red. The tech­no­lo­gy named 'airy-beam light sheet mi­cro­sco­py' of­fers large-vo­lu­me, high throug­h­put ima­ging ca­pa­bi­li­ties for re­se­arch in neu­ro­sci­ence, on­co­lo­gy and re­ge­ne­ra­ti­ve me­di­ci­ne.

Fi­nal­ly, the award also re­cognis­ed my in­vol­vement in de­ve­lo­ping new che­mi­cal sen­sing mo­da­li­ties for the re­mo­te de­tec­tion of th­re­ats as well as novel Raman spec­tro­me­ters to pre­vent coun­ter­fei­ting in the di­stil­led spi­rits in­dus­try.

What does it mean to you to re­cei­ve this prize?

I have worked in­credi­b­ly hard over the years to make si­gni­fi­cant pro­gress, so re­cei­ving this prize is an ab­so­lu­te ho­nour, and I feel hum­bled to be re­cognis­ed by an or­ga­ni­sa­ti­on as dis­tin­guis­hed as the In­sti­tu­te of Phy­sics. I am also re­min­ded that my achie­vements would not have been pos­si­ble alone, it has taken a large team of ta­len­ted and pas­sio­na­te sci­en­tist and en­gi­neers to make the ex­tent of this work pos­si­ble. 

How did you end up working for M Squa­red?

My in­te­rest in la­sers began du­ring the ‘La­ser­tech­nik’ lec­tu­res given by Pro­fes­sor So­wa­da du­ring my time at uni­ver­si­ty. I be­ca­me mes­me­ri­sed by the theo­ry of la­sers. For my in­tern­ship in the 8th se­mes­ter, Pro­fes­sor So­wa­da sug­gested I might want to ex­pand my ho­ri­zons and work in the field ab­road. I took the ad­vice and worked at Co­he­rent in Scot­land for nine months to gain prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence in laser de­ve­lop­ment. Once I'd fi­nis­hed my un­der­grad at FH Kiel in 2006, I re­tur­ned to Scot­land to work on my PhD in laser phy­sics at the In­sti­tu­te of Pho­to­nics at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Stra­th­cly­de which I com­ple­ted in 2010. Once I star­ted to look at my ca­re­er pro­s­pects, I be­ca­me aware of M Squa­red's gro­wing re­pu­ta­ti­on for de­signing and en­gi­nee­ring ad­van­ced laser sys­tems. The com­pany was only four years old at this point, and the idea of joi­ning a small but am­bi­tious com­pany was im­mense­ly ex­ci­ting. I star­ted as a laser en­gi­neer at M Squa­red, and in hind­sight, this was a pi­vo­tal point in my ca­re­er.

Any­thing from your time at the Fach­hoch­schu­le Kiel that hel­ped you du­ring your work?

A ple­tho­ra of things from my time at the Fach­hoch­schu­le Kiel have been be­ne­fi­ci­al. I think many be­ne­fits came from the in­ter­di­sci­pli­na­ry na­tu­re of the Me­cha­tro­nik cour­se. Me­cha­ni­cal and elec­tri­cal en­gi­nee­ring, op­ti­cal sys­tems, and soft­ware are to­pics I dis­cuss daily. It's this ex­pan­si­ve know­ledge that al­lows me to lead tech­ni­cal teams. More im­por­tant­ly, howe­ver, the mul­ti­face­ted na­tu­re of the me­cha­tro­nic cour­se taught me how to acqui­re new know­ledge quick­ly. In my po­si­ti­on, as Head of In­no­va­ti­on, this is cri­ti­cal for ex­ample I need to be com­pe­tent in quan­tum tech­no­lo­gies in one mee­ting and bio­me­di­cal ima­ging in the next.

How are the work con­di­ti­ons bet­ween Ger­many and the UK dif­fe­rent and how does this af­fect the pos­si­bi­li­ties to in­no­va­te in the UK vs Ger­many?

I have worked in the UK throug­hout my en­ti­re pro­fes­sio­nal ca­re­er, so it is dif­fi­cult for me to com­pa­re the two coun­tries based on any first-hand ex­pe­ri­ence. Ger­many has a well-es­ta­blis­hed and de­si­ra­ble ‘Mit­tel­stand’ where it is re­cognis­ed that a strong base of SMEs forms a solid founda­ti­on for a re­si­li­ent eco­no­my. The 2008 fi­nan­ci­al cri­sis struck the UK quite hard, so one might say the UK needs to con­ti­nue to streng­then their own ‘Mit­tel­stand’. The UK go­vern­ment is hu­ge­ly sup­por­ti­ve, and it is in­ves­ting hea­vi­ly into in­dus­tri­al R&D. This sup­port has un­doub­ted­ly hel­ped com­pa­nies like M Squa­red and its in­no­va­ti­on di­vi­si­on achie­ve high-growth.

Have you ever thought about re­tur­ning to Ger­many?

I have in­de­ed thought of re­tur­ning to Ger­many, but never more than du­ring my first few years in the UK. Over time, howe­ver, I star­ted to build re­la­ti­on­ships with pro­fes­sors, fel­low stu­dents, and lat­ter­ly col­le­agues and pro­fes­sio­nals who have all sup­por­ted me on my jour­ney. These re­la­ti­on­ships worked to tie me to the place that has be­co­me more and more fa­mi­li­ar. I guess, over the years, I have grown coun­try-agno­stic, so it doesn't mat­ter where I live, I still have my he­ri­ta­ge, and I also have my fa­mi­ly, fri­ends and col­le­agues. In the UK I have had many op­por­tu­nities to achie­ve great things, and I be­lie­ve that no mat­ter where I live, I will main­tain a 'sci­ence is glo­bal' ap­proach to my work. It's not so im­por­tant to think about where one is based; it is, howe­ver, vital to think about what one choo­ses to do.

What ad­vice would you give to stu­dents that are stu­dy­ing me­cha­tro­nics now?

I did not start my life fee­ling dri­ven, not until I found so­me­thing that com­ple­te­ly fa­sci­na­ted me. At that point, I had a Eu­re­ka mo­ment, and that pas­si­on also awoke the de­si­re and drive to push mys­elf har­der than ever be­fo­re. My ad­vice is, take the time to find out what you truly love doing and do it.

© Fach­hoch­schu­le Kiel