Rate My Professor Anatoly Zayats

Professor Anatoly Zayats is a Professor of Physics at King’s College London in the Department of Physics, Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences, a position he has held since 2010. Prior to this appointment, he served as Chair in Physics at Queen’s University Belfast. Zayats earned his PhD in 1989 from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology for his thesis on the optical properties of defects in wide-band semiconductors, and his MSc in 1986 from the same institution. At King’s College London, he heads the Photonics & Nanotechnology Group, which focuses on advanced photonic technologies, novel nanomaterials, and applications in quantum technologies, sensing, imaging, and clean energy. He also co-directs the Net Zero Centre, London Centre for Nanotechnology, and London Institute for Advanced Light Technologies, and serves as founding co-editor-in-chief of the journal Advanced Photonics.

His research specializations include nanophotonics and plasmonics, metamaterials and metasurfaces, electromagnetic field topology and optical spin-orbit coupling effects, nonlinear and ultrafast optics and spectroscopy, hot-electrons and associated photochemistry, near-field optics, scanning probe microscopy, and optical properties of surfaces, thin films, semiconductors, and low-dimensional structures. Zayats has received the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, Humboldt Research Award, and 2026 SPIE Directors' Award, and holds fellowships from the Institute of Physics, Optical Society of America, SPIE, Royal Society of Chemistry, and is a Member of Academia Europaea. His scholarly impact is evidenced by over 36,500 citations and an h-index of 93 on Google Scholar. Key publications include "Nano-optics of surface plasmon polaritons" (Physics Reports, 2005), "Nonlinear plasmonics" (Nature Photonics, 2012), "Spin–orbit interactions of light" (Nature Photonics, 2015), "Plasmonic nanorod metamaterials for biosensing" (Nature Materials, 2009), and "Near-field photonics: surface plasmon polaritons and localized surface plasmons" (Journal of Optics A: Pure and Applied Optics, 2003). His contributions have advanced fields such as plasmonic nanophotonics, nonlinear nano-optics, and quantum plasmonics through leadership in major EPSRC and ERC grants.