The Max Planck Schools are a joint initiative of German universities and non-university research institutions. Since 2019, they offer young researchers the opportunity to write their PhD in a network with access to some of the most renowned scientists in the research fields of Cognition, Matter of Life and Photonics.

MPSP students are typically spread across eight campuses in Germany. But with the basic idea that "the whole is more than the sum of its parts", the Max Planck Schools also want to give their students a regular chance to exchange ideas with each other and with other scientists. Therefore, there is a joint excursion twice a year, the MPSP Spring and Autumn School. This year, the participants of the Autumn School went to the Waischenfeld research campus of the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS). The starting point of the event was the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Light in Erlangen.

The group was welcomed by the scientific speaker Katharina Kißner as well as MPSP speaker Gerd Leuchs, who gave a short introduction to the different research areas at the institute. Afterwards, the students could take part in several laboratory tours of the different research groups to gain new insights into the work at MPL. At 5 p.m., the approximately 60 participants continued their journey to Waischenfeld.

Photo 1 (MPL): MPSP speaker Gerd Leuchs gives a short welcome speech for the participants of the Autumn School.

Photo 2 (MPL): The students were able to gain insights into the research work at the institute on labor tours such as the one here with Xinglin Zeng (Stiller Research Group).