Education

Teaching is directed towards several goals. On the one hand, research-specific lectures will be provided to guide PhD students rapidly to the frontiers of research. On the other hand, a broad fundamental knowledge and interdisciplinary knowledge will be presented to conceive their scientific work from a broader intellectual point of view. Lectures by distinguished visiting experts will complement the lecture courses, which will also include some of the presently existing lectures at the universities. A lively exchange of ideas between the members of MPQ and the universities together with the PhD students through joint seminars and workshops will provide a stimulating scientific framework.

Lectures

It is envisaged that students will typically participate in one to two 3-hour lectures per week during the semester, each supported by 1-hour tutorials. Depending on the knowledge of the student, basic courses can be attended to build and strengthen the fundamentals for their PhD. Importantly advanced lectures will sharpen the individual scientific focus of the students. General lectures are thus split into basic and advanced courses. All basic courses are offered at a level beyond the master‘s courses. All lectures are given in English. The students are expected to attend 6 courses from the overall offer in basic and advanced lecture courses and block lectures. For this purpose, certificates can be obtained by the attendance of a course and in some cases passing a written and/or oral exam at the end of the lecture. Assignments of the lectures to specific lecturers have changed over the years and new courses have been added to the program with the change in the IMPRS-APS faculty. Lectures of the current faculty cover the following topics:

Lectures cover the following topics:

Basic Lecture Courses:

• Photonics I: the theory of light and its advanced applications (3+1) (Krausz)
• Photonics II: intense laser-matter interactions in science, technology and medicine (3+1) (Krausz)
• Nonlinear Optics (3+1) (Hänsch)
• Atomic structure and dynamics (3+1) (Burgdörfer)
• Introduction to plasma physics (3+1)
• Computational Plasma Physics (4+2) (Ruhl)
• Nonlinear laser spectroscopy: Methods and applications (3+1) (Laubereau)
• Molecular physics and spectroscopy (3+1) (Riedle)

Advanced Lecture Courses:

• Non-linear dynamics and chaos (with emphasis on photonic processes) (3+1) (Burgdörfer)
• Time-dependent quantum dynamics of molecular systems (3+1) (Domcke)
• Laser acceleration contra classical acceleration - New applications of beams in medicine, biology and achology (3+1) (Habs)
• Ultracold atoms and new quantum matter (3+1) (Hänsch)
• Ultrafast spectroscopy of nonequilibrium carrier dynamics in semiconductors (3+1) (Laubereau/Betz)
• Physics of inertial fusion (2) (Meyer-ter-Vehn)
• Attosecond physics / theory (2) (Scrinzi)
• The Schrödinger equation with strong external fields (2) (Scrinzi)
• Molecular dynamics in chemistry and biology (3+1) (Domcke, Riedle)
• Physics and applications in the Extreme Ultraviolet and Soft X-ray spectral range (3+1) (Kleineberg)
• Quantum Physics of Ultracold atoms (3+1) (Hommelhoff)