After completing his undergraduate studies at the Universität Karlsruhe in Germany, Sven moved to Stanford University (USA) joining the research group of Douglas D. Osheroff and in 1997 was awarded his PhD in physics. As a postdoctoral researcher at Delft University of Technology (Netherlands), his research focused on atomic-scale electronics with the twofold aim of realising quantum electronics in silicon and establishing atomistic-device physics.He received a fellowship from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) from 2000 – 2005 and then headed the Atomic-Scale Electronics Group at the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience.

In 2010, Sven was awarded an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship and joined CQC2T at University of New South Wales in January 2011. In the Centre Sven manages the experimental Silicon Qubit Environment and Interface program which aims to understand the impact of the environment on the orbital and spin properties of qubits, including an understanding of decoherence processes. To achieve this, cryogenic charge detection, direct electrical transport, noise, and pulsed high-frequency measurements and UHV scanning tunneling spectroscopy are carried out. Furthermore, the program aims to develop an optical interface to a Si qubit which will support simple long distance coupling schemes.

The goal of Sven's Research Program is to understand the physics of qubit coupling with the environment to understand decoherence pathways and to control. The control over the electron wavefunction requires interface which lead to the loss of bulk properties of the qubit due to physical processes like the valley-orbit coupling, exchange, and many-body effects in coherent coupling. The atomistic understanding of the interaction between the environment and the qubit is essential for quantum computation since it allows the achievement of optimal coherence times and optimal robustness of the quantum gates. Optical addressing of electrons in Si is nontrivial but vastly beneficial due to the gained flexibility and unprecedented high resolution. We investigate efficient read-out and coupling schemes to open up new pathways into optical control.