Mathias Schubert

In 2000, Schubert was appointed Assistant Professor (Habilitant, C1) at University of Leipzig, where he founded the Ellipsometry group. In 2005 Schubert was founding member of the German Association of Ellipsometry (Paul Drude e.V.). In 2005 Schubert was appointed associate professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he founded the Complex Materials Optics Network. In 2012 he became Full professor. Schubert's research focuses on broad spectral range optical characterization of organic and inorganic materials. He invented and developed spectroscopic generalized ellipsometry broadly for characterization of arbitrarily anisotropic materials. His research team invented the optical Hall effect for noncontact measurement of the charge carrier mass in semiconductor materials and thin film heterojunctions. The generalized ellipsometry concept permits analysis of optical properties of materials with all crystal classes, particularly with low symmetry such as orthorhombic, monoclininc, and triclinic. Schubert developed a general concept for modeling the optical properties of low-symmetry materials, the eigendielectric polarization model. In 2022, he demonstrated measurement of the magnetic susceptibility tensor in electron paramagnetic resonance using terahertz ellipsometry and was part of a team describing a new form of coupled phonon photon states in low-symmetry materials.

Schubert was born in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. He graduated high school in 1986 with vocational education as tool and die maker from the Keramische Werke in Hermsdorf, Thuringia. After military service he studied physics at the University of Leipzig until 1994. He received a fellowship from the German Merit Foundation in 1995 for his doctoral research. In 1997 after earning his PhD he moved to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he worked on infrared ellipsometry developments for characterization of semiconductors. After return to the University of Leipzig he obtained his habilitation in 2003 in experimental physics.

Mathias Michael Schubert (born 19 October 1966) is a German physicist, J. A. Woollam Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and member of the Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience. He is a specialist in spectroscopic ellipsometry and has contributed to the development of blue and white LED, fast processors and efficient biological and chemical sensors. He is also visiting professor at Linkoping University and Associate Editor of the journal Applied Physics Letters.