Bernhard Schrenk received the M.Sc. (‘07) degree in microelectronics from the Technical University of Vienna. He was at the Institute of Experimental Physics of Nobel laureate Prof. A. Zeilinger, where he was involved in the realization of a first commercial prototype for a quantum cryptography system, within the European SECOQC project. From 2007 to early 2011 he obtained his Ph.D degree at UPC BarcelonaTech, Spain. His Ph.D thesis on multi-functional optical network units for next-generation Fiber-to-the-Home access networks was awarded with the Photonics21 Student Innovation Award and the Euro-Fos Student Research Award. In 2011 he joined the National Technical University of Athens as post-doctoral researcher. In 2013 he established his own research group on photonic communications at AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Vienna, where he is working towards 6G, quantum communication, optical signal processing and photonic integration.
Dr. Schrenk has served as Technical Program Committee member for the OFC and ECOC conferences. During his research activities he was and is still engaged in several European projects within the FP7, Quantum Flagship, 6G Smart Networks and Services, EIC Pathfinder and Quantera research frameworks. In 2013 he received a European Marie-Curie Grant. His excellent work is further evidenced by an ERC Starting Grant he received in 2018 from the European Research Council (ERC), while he was awarded an ERC Proof-of-Concept grant in 2024.
For JLT, he is handling submissions on the following topics:
• Optical-wireless convergence, optical wireless and mobile fronthaul demonstrations
• Quantum key distribution and quantum communication systems
• Fiber-optic and free-space optical sensing technologies
• Neuromorphic computing and optical neural network demonstrations