Newsroom

After the successful live premiere weekend on June 29 and 30, 2024 at the “Münchner Wissenschaftstage / forscha” and the “Festival der Zukunft” at the Deutsches Museum, the third episode of the German language radio play “Alice im Quantenland” is now available to listen to on all popular streaming portals. This time, Alice, Schrödinger and Rabbit go to the quantum fair, where there are once again some unusual things to discover and experience. more

Xing-Yan Chen pursued his PhD project in the Quantum Many Body Systems division. His work, supervised by Xin-Yu Luo and Immanuel Bloch, focuses on the creation and manipulation of ultracold molecules. Specifically, he demonstrated a new type of scattering resonances between polar molecules, and used these resonances to bind two molecules into a "supermolecule". more

The LMU Center for NanoScience and four LMU spin-off companies present the Nano Innovation Award for particularly innovative doctoral theses. Andreas Gritsch, who completed his doctorate in the Otto Hahn Group Quantum Networks at MPQ, won second place. The physicist built a novel platform for quantum networks that has significant potential for the development of scalable quantum network nodes. more

The prestigious research award enables internationally recognised researchers from abroad to undertake guest stays at German scientific institutions. Adam Kaufman began his visit on 14 July and will collaborate with W2 research group leader Monika Aidelsburger and MPQ Director Immanuel Bloch. more

Entanglement today is THE tool of quantum information science. But it is highly sensitive and its creation between resting qubits (atoms) and flying qubits (photons) at the push of a button an enormous challenge. Using a multiplexing technique and laser tweezers in optical resonators, a team from the quantum dynamics department at MPQ recently succeeded in doing exactly that with a near complete efficiency. more

Time passes faster in Munich than in Braunschweig – the difference has to do with the fact that Munich is geographically higher. Although it is miniscule at around one second in a million years, it can be measured very accurately using optical atomic clocks. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ), the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) and Leibniz University Hannover (LUH) have now measured the difference in altitude between the two cities using two optical clocks.  more

The physicist from the Department of Laser Spectroscopy at MPQ has measured electronic transitions in deuterium with unprecedented precision. The prize, named after the Nobel Prize winner and pioneer of laser spectroscopy, honours particularly outstanding and ground-breaking dissertations in the field of physics. In his work, Vitaly Wirthl succeeded in measuring a specific energy transition in deuterium, the heavy hydrogen, more precisely than ever before. more

Quantum physics today is to be found in almost every corner of our everyday lives. But how well is it understood in society? The new special exhibition ‘Light and Matter’ at the Deutsches Museum starting today illuminates quantum optical phenomena and turns them into tangible matter. With numerous objects, scenoramas and many hands-on stations, the exhibition shows how the understanding of the light matter interaction has evolved over the last century, and offers an insight into current research and future applications. more

An experimental team from the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics and the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich successfully observed and manipulated the peculiar states emerging at topological boundaries, so-called edge modes. Key to the researchers’ breakthrough was the level of unprecedented control over the experimental parameters, which previously rendered the observation of these edge-modes elusive. The results are featured in Nature Physics. more

The experimental physicist receives the distinction for her pioneering work in molecular spectroscopy with interfering frequency combs. Named in honour of the eponymous scientist’s contributions to spectroscopy and metrology, the William F. Meggers Award was established in 1970 by Optica. Nathalie Picqué was presented with the award on 7 May 2024 at the CLEO Conference in Charlotte (NC), USA. more

Oriana Diessel completed her doctorate in Richard Schmidt's independent research group. Her theoretical work focusses on two special features of many-body systems: so-called "polarons" and previously unknown phase transitions in light-matter systems. In her work, Oriana Diessel developed models to theoretically describe the two phenomena, thereby providing a further building block for our understanding of quantum many-body theory. more

Being elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences is regarded as one of the most distinguished honours a scientist can receive. While the majority of members hold U.S. citizenship, up to 30 international members are elected annually. NAS members are “charged with providing independent, objective advice on matters related to science and technology”. more