The industry’s most innovative people 2024 Marco Hanft


Organisation: Carl Zeiss Role: Director, Optical Systems Design


Marco Hanft has headed the optical design department of Carl Zeiss' central research facility in Jena since 2011. The department designs optics for medical technology, microscopy, industrial measurement technology as well as photography and lithography.


Hanft studied medical and physical engineering with a focus on optics at the TFH Berlin. Later, as part of his diploma thesis at the Laser Medicine Center Berlin (LMTB), he developed a set-up for measuring the radiation characteristics of the fibre illumination of endoscopes. In recent years he has: initiated academic-


Mariia Zhuldybina


Organisation: École de Technologie Supérieure


Role: Institutional Researcher


Mariia Zhuldybina, an Institutional researcher at the École de Technologie Supérieure in Montréal, Canada, is working on the development of metamaterials for 6G communication. Her work, Zhuldybina says, will help improve the connection between devices and allow safer and higher speed information transfers. Over the coming year, her focus will be on reconfigurable intelligent surfaces for various applications in 6G.


“The development of components that can operate at THz frequencies is still a significant challenge,” Zhuldybina says.


Based in: Montréal, Canada


Education: PhD, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, École de technologie supérieure


“THz waves can suffer from high free-


space losses and absorption by atmospheric gases. Implementing regulations and standards for new THz technologies is still in progress. The solution can be found by implementing configurable electromagnetic materials in every environmental object coated with man-made intelligent surfaces. These materials contain integrated electronic circuits and software that enable the control of the wireless medium.” Zhuldybina is also co-founder and CEO of TRAQC, which makes terahertz- based systems for monitoring the fabrication of electronics.


Mark Cropper


Organisation: Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London


Role: Professor


Mark Cropper leads the team behind the Visible Camera (VIS), one of two instruments on the European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope, which launched on 1 July. “The goal of this mission is to


understand the nature of dark matter and dark energy, which together constitute 95% of the universe,” says Cropper, who now begins the multi-year sky survey to make the very careful measurements needed. VIS is sensitive to visible wavelengths from green (550nm) up to near-infrared


(900nm). It uses 36 CCDs (charge coupled devices), each of which contains more than 4,000 pixels by 4,000 pixels. This gives the detector a total of about 600 megapixels, equivalent to almost 70 4K resolution screens, according to the ESA. Along with a 1.2m-diameter telescope, Euclid also carries a near-infrared camera/spectrometer (the Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer, NISP). Euclid captured its first images at the end


of July and Cropper says he is “revelling in the magnificent images it produces”.


Based in: UK Education: PhD, Astronomy


Based in: Halle, Germany Education: TFH Berlin


industrial projects at Zeiss with disruptive ideas; been an invited speaker at many top photonics conferences; lectured optical design at Jena University; has acted as a senior reviewer of PanDao software and papers; and has continued to head up the industrial group of optical designers at the heart of Zeiss' optical systems innovation. Hanft’s colleagues claim him to be the first to apply modelling of fabrication chains within optics design, as well as a calm, experienced voice that positively impacts Zeiss’ technology innovation.


Hanft is a member of SPIE and Deutschen Gesellschaft für angewandte Optik (DGaO).


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