Markus A. Schmidt owns a full professorship for Fiber Optics at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and is head of the research department Fiber Photonics at the Leibniz Institute for Photonic Technologies (IPHT), leading the working group Hybrid Fibers.

Optical fibers provide an ideal base for novel nanophotonic devices due to their unique optical properties, outperforming the properties of planar waveguides in many cases. The Fiber Sensor Group (FSG) at the Institute of Photonic Technology (IPHT), a team of highly motivated specialists concentrates on implementing novel optical concepts and placing nanostructured elements into fibers and using these devices in various areas of optics, mainly in biophotonics. Currently we are focusing on plasmonic and metamaterials in fibers - realized by placing nanoscale metallic wires and elements into fibers - in order to observe exciting effects such as Fano resonances or slow light. Furthermore we are targeting electrically active fibers for electro-static particle traps, and we are keen on placing unusual materials into the fibers such as chalcogenide, liquids or semiconductors to implement all kinds of in-fiber devices in areas such as nonlinear optics, modulators or integrated detectors. The group is located at the IPHT in Jena and has a Europe-wide outstanding infrastructure to facilitate nano- and microstructured optical fibers. We work very close together with the photonics people from the local university and from industry.