Prof McKnight takes up the role after working at Fraunhofer CAP for 13 years, most recently as head of the center’s quantum technologies business unit. He succeeds Prof Martin Dawson, who had been the center’s head and scientific director since it was founded in 2012 and who stepped down from the post at the end of 2024.

McKnight has a broad range of technical expertise in fields including frequency-stabilized lasers, photon sources, integrated optics and quantum systems for sensing and information processing. He leads a number of large national and international research programs in quantum technologies.

He will transfer into the Institute of Photonics at Strathclyde from this month as Professor of Practice, discharging his Fraunhofer role under a formal secondment, as is normal for Fraunhofer Institute leaders.

Under Prof Dawson’s leadership, Fraunhofer CAP has grown to employ more than 70 staff and students and has undertaken around 285 competitively won R&D projects with more than 130 industrial partners, ranging from SMEs to multinationals. Fraunhofer CAP has established itself as a strong contributor to the UK’s National Quantum Technology Programme, which it has supported since the outset, in themes including stand-off sensing and lidar.

Prof Dawson will retain his distinguished professorship in the Institute of Photonics and will continue as an advisor to Fraunhofer CAP as director emeritus.

Further reading: A decade of applied research and development – Fraunhofer CAP and Fraunhofer UK celebrate tenth anniversary, wileyindustrynews.com, 30 June 2022