Kay Brandner
Associate Professor • UKRI Future Leaders Fellow
Associate Professor • UKRI Future Leaders Fellow
School of Physics and Astronomy
University of Nottingham
Nottingham NG7 2RD
United Kingdom
kay.brandner[at]nottingham.ac.uk
I am an Associate Professor working in theoretical non-equilibrium physics. Before joining the Condensed Matter Theory group at the University of Nottingham (UK) in 2020, I was a postdoctoral researcher at Keio University (Japan) and Aalto University (Finland). I received my PhD in 2015 from the University of Stuttgart (Germany) working with Udo Seifert on the stochastic thermodynamics of micro- and nano-scale thermal devices.
Research
The subjects of my research are small-scale systems in both the classical and quantum domains, including cold atoms, superconducting circuits, mesoscopic conductors, artificial nano-scale devices and bio-molecular machines. The overarching aim of my work is to develop universal theoretical models to describe the dynamics of these systems, which promise to play a central role in future technologies. Key topics of interest include the fundamental nature of non-equilibrium noise and fluctuations, collective phenomena arising from interactions between many degrees of freedom, memory effects induced by slow relaxation, and the role of thermodynamic constraints.