Every year the Max Planck Society features research from their numerous institutes. This year, the Stiller Research Group was invited to give an overview of the achievements of our research group over the last years. It explains how our fabrication-free approach to optical neuromorphic computing could help overcome fundamental challenges in current neural network implementations. In addition, it outlines our path toward bringing optoacoustics into the quantum domain and shows how the interaction between light and sound can be used to sense exotic thermodynamic states such as negative pressures. Read the full report here.