Colloquia

The MPQ Colloquium is held on Tuesdays at 2:30 pm.
The MCQST Colloquium takes place on Tuesdays at 2:00 pm.

The talks will take place in Herbert Walther Lecture Hall. Details on how to participate online are distributed via the mailing lists [wiss-mpq] and [Mpq-colloquium-stream]. To receive this information, please register using the attached link.

Scientific organization of the talks: Dr. Stephan Dürr and Prof. Thomas Udem

“Restoring Vision Using Optogenetics” (Prof. Botond Roska)

Date: Jul 8, 2025
Time: 02:30 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Prof. Botond Roska
IOB Basel, Switzerland
Location: Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, Hans-Kopferman-Straße 1, 85748 Garching
Room: Herbert Walther Lecture Hall
Host: Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics

I will present our work developing optogenetic vision restoration technologies for blind patients with retinal degenerative diseases. I will discuss how we transform surviving retinal cells into photoreceptor-like cells capable of responding to light stimuli. Our approach has progressed from initial proof-of-concept studies in animal models to clinical applications in blind human patients, demonstrating meaningful visual perception restoration. [more]

“Quantum many-body scars” (Prof. Anne Nielsen)

Date: Jul 15, 2025
Time: 02:30 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Prof. Anne Nielsen
Aarhus University, Denmark
Location: Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, Hans-Kopferman-Straße 1, 85748 Garching
Room: Herbert Walther Lecture Hall
Host: Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics

Quantum many-body scars are highly excited states with atypical properties. They are remarkable because they do not follow the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis and lead to interesting dynamics. After a general introduction to the field, I will discuss how similar quantum scars are to ground states. In particular, quantum scars can undergo both adiabatic evolution and phase transitions. I will also introduce inverted quantum many-body scars. [more]

“tba” (MCQST) (Prof. Nergis Mavalvala)

Date: Jul 22, 2025
Time: 02:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Prof. Nergis Mavalvala
MIT, Cambridge, USA
Location: Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, Hans-Kopferman-Straße 1, 85748 Garching
Room: Herbert Walther Lecture Hall
Host: MCQST

tba [more]

"A mechanical qubit" (Prof. Yiwen Chu)

Wednesday
Date: Jul 23, 2025
Time: 02:30 PM - 02:30 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Prof. Yiwen Chu
ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Location: Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, Hans-Kopferman-Straße 1, 85748 Garching
Room: Herbert Walther Lecture Hall

tba [more]

"Quantum science in cavity arrays" (Prof. Jonathan Simon)

Friday
Date: Jul 25, 2025
Time: 03:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Prof. Jonathan Simon
Stanford University. USA
Location: Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, Hans-Kopferman-Straße 1, 85748 Garching
Room: Herbert Walther Lecture Hall
Host: Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics

In this talk I will discuss ongoing efforts in the Simon-Schuster collaboration at Stanford that leverage arrays of optical and microwave resonators for quantum science. On the microwave side, I will describe our Bose-Hubbard circuit platform and share experimental work assembling and studying liquids and solids of photons, culminating in our demonstration of manybody Ramsey spectroscopy as a probe of chemical potential and pressure in photon fluids. [more]