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Today, 6 December marks the start of Nobel Week in Stockholm, when the Swedish royal family and the institutions responsible for awarding the Nobel Prize gather to honour this year's laureates. Among them is Ferenc Krausz, who will receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2023, which is already the second Nobel Prize in Physics for the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics. In 2005, Theodor Hänsch was honoured in Stockholm with this most important prize of science. more

Immanuel Bloch, Scientific Director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics  and Chairholder at the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, has been awarded the prestigious Stern Gerlach Medal from the German Physical Society (DPG). The award – the highest accolade issued by the DPG for achievements in the field of experimental physics – recognises his ground-breaking research on quantum simulations with ultracold atoms in optical lattices. more

After a successful review, the German-Japanese Center for Time, Constants and Fundamental Symmetries (TCFS) can start its second term. It will continue to strengthen the collaboration among German and Japanese institutes to advance most sensitive instruments for fundamental measurements in atomic and nuclear physics, antimatter and dark matter research, quantum optics and metrology. more

The experimental physicist receives the award for her significant contributions in the field of dual-comb interferometry. The research prize, established in memory of phycisist and mathematician Cécile Morette-DeWitt, is presented annually by the French Academy of Sciences. The award ceremony took place on 17 October under the famed cupola of the Institut de France. more

On 19 September, Ignacio Cirac, Director of the Theory Department at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, received the first La Vanguardia Prize in the category "Innovation", which the Spanish daily by the same name awarded for the first time on the occasion of its 142nd anniversary in 2023. The prize was ceremoniously presented to him by Spain's King Felipe VI, who graced the event together with his wife, Queen Letizia. more

Ferenc Krausz, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and Professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, together with Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier, has been honoured with the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics. The Nobel Committee is honouring the two reserachers for the foundation of attosecond physics. An attosecond is a billionth of a billionth of a second. Laser pulses lasting only a few attoseconds can be used to track the movements of individual electrons. This provides fundamental... more

Laser physicists from the attoworld team at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) and Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München (LMU) have developed a new and unique high-power laser system for driving the attosecond beamlines and ultrafast attosecond experiments at MPQ. The new laser “HORUS” (High-power OPCPA system for high Repetition rate Ultrafast Spectroscopy) operates in the near-infrared spectral range at ... more

Last week, Eli Yablonovitch, referred to as the father of the photonic crystal, has been named MPQ Distinguished Scholar, which is an award and research scholarship given to outstanding scientists in the field of optics, photonics, quantum physics, or other areas related to quantum optics by the Board of Directors of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics. This program allows an awardee to spend up to six months at the Institute to collaborate with its scientific departments. more

The Bernard J. Couillaud Prize in Ultrafast Lasers honours Dr Edoardo Vicentini’s state-of-the-art research on digital holography with femtosecond frequency combs.The award, conferred annually by the Optica Foundation and Coherent Inc., recognises excellent early-career researchers in ultrafast photonics. Awardees receive a financial grant of 20,000 US dollars, intended to support their outstanding innovative research projects. more

In 2018, Joannis Koepsell and his colleagues at MPQ experienced a magnetic moment: They succeeded for the first time in photographically imaging so-called magnetic polarons, using a quantum simulator. Now, almost five years later, for this astounding discovery as part of his PhD thesis, Joannis Koepsell is awarded with the Otto-Hahn-Medal, the dissertation prize of the Max Planck Society for young talented researchers. more

Atoms of the rare earth metal erbium embedded in a silicon crystal can be used to build quantum networks. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics have now succeeded in taking an important step towards technical realisation: For the first time, they were able to elicit individual light particles from such atoms – with properties that make them suitable carriers of quantum information. more

During photoinjection, an electron that cannot move freely through a solid receives enough energy from a light wave to become mobile. Scientists have been exploring this phenomenon since the beginning of quantum mechanics; nevertheless, there are still open questions about how the relevant processes unfold in time.  Laser physicists of MPQ and LMU have now made a direct observation of... more