Rate My Professor Peter Jacobson

Dr Peter Jacobson serves as Senior Lecturer in Condensed Matter Physics in the School of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Queensland, having joined the institution in June 2019, where he heads the SPMQT Lab focused on scanning probe microscopy for quantum technologies. He earned his PhD from Tulane University in New Orleans, USA, in 2012, followed by research positions at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany, and the University of Graz in Austria. His research centers on materials for quantum technology and scanning probe microscopy (STM/AFM), including advancements in superconducting germanium compatible with industry methods, terahertz nanospectroscopy of plasmon polaritons for doping evaluation in quantum devices, and surface engineering for superconducting quantum circuits. Jacobson has secured major funding through ARC projects, such as the Discovery Project on atomic-scale engineering of bioactive organic molecules on surfaces (2024-2027) and the Linkage Project on surface and interface engineering for superconducting quantum circuits (2023-2026), as well as contributions to the Queensland Quantum Decarbonisation Alliance and Victorian Facility for Atom-Scale Quantum Microscopy.

Jacobson boasts an impressive publication record with over 40 works, highlighted by contributions to Nature Nanotechnology (2025) on superconductivity in Ga-hyperdoped Ge films, The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters (2023) on boson peak localization in tantalum films, Nanophotonics (2023) on terahertz nanospectroscopy, ACS Nano (2023) on chirality-specific molecular motors, and Materials for Quantum Technology (2022) on ternary metal oxide substrates. His scholarship has amassed more than 2,500 citations on Google Scholar. As a principal supervisor, he has overseen PhD completions on low-loss superconducting circuits (2026) and coherent circuit fabrication (2025), and currently leads projects on quantum device engineering via scanning probe microscopy and molecular nanostructures. He teaches advanced physics courses and delivers conference papers on terahertz nanoscopy, while contributing to public discourse through articles like “Who was Amelia Frank? The life of a forgotten physicist” in The Conversation (2025).