Quantum Optoacoustics

Research Group Birgit Stiller

Welcome to the website of the Birgit Stiller Research Group

In my research group, we study the interplay of light waves with sound waves. Both types of waves are very different: light is much faster and can travel through outer space – sound is 100,000 times slower and needs a material such as a solid, gas or liquid to move. Our research leads to new types of data processing with sound waves, applications for secure quantum communications and storage of light information.

Research at a glance

We are an independent Max Planck Research Group, centrally funded by the Max Planck Society. We are experimentalists and our main topics evolve around quantum signal processing and optical computing. Our focus is on light-sound interactions. We use our knowledge spanning from nonlinear optics to quantum communications and from fiber optics to integrated photonics.

The physics of optical waves interacting with acoustic or mechanical vibrations is fascinating because it links two very different domains in terms of frequency, velocity, dissipation and other properties. We explore the interaction experimentally at the classical and quantum level with suitably engineered microstructured fibers and nanowaveguides to manipulate, in this way, light states. Finally, we aim to use the interaction of optical and mechanical waves for applications in quantum technologies and optical neural networks.

Our current research projects focus on the following topics:

Quantum optoacoustic interactions
Photonic-phononic storage
Optoacoustic signal processing for optical neural networks
Twist and sound: interaction of structured light and structured sound
Thermodynamics and acoustics
Magnon-phonon-photon interactions

For more information about our research, please go to news and publications.

Positions available! If you are interested in joining the group as an undergraduate student (Bachelor/Master), PhD student or Postdoc please contact us.

Our Team

From left to right and back to front: Cedric Traub, Grigorii Slinkov, Andreas Geilen, Philipp Wiedemann, Simon Soller, Paulina Rivera Fuentes, Xinglin Zeng, Lisa Fischer, Laura Blázquez Martínez, Changlong Zhu, Markus Schmitt, Olivia Saffer, Steven Becker, Birgit Stiller, Rajkumar Jadhav.

Contact

Research Group Birgit Stiller

Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light
Staudtstr. 2
91058 Erlangen, Germany

birgit.stiller@mpl.mpg.de

Research team leader Prof. Dr. Birgit Stiller

"Let there be sound! Sound waves can be created by light waves and light can be changed by acoustic waves. Connecting both types of waves opens a surprisingly wide field of interesting applications, for example for artificial intelligence, and yet poses open questions at the fundamental level!"

Birgit Stiller awarded grant by the European Research Council for her research project ‘Sound-Computing’

Using optoacoustic neural networks to take artificial intelligence (AI) to the next level. This is the ambitious goal of the ‘SOUND-PC’ research project for which Prof. Birgit Stiller, Leader of the Research Group ‘Quantum Optoacoustics’ and W3 Professor at Leibniz Universität Hannover, has been awarded the ERC Consolidator Grant.

Photonics100 – Birgit Stiller honored as one of the leading innovators of photonics

The Photonics100 list for 2025 was published recently. Among the top innovators in photonics featured in the list is Prof. Dr. Birgit Stiller. She is head of the research group ›Quantum Optoacoustics‹ at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL).

MPL scientists find a new way of entangling light and sound

For a wide variety of emerging quantum technologies, such as secure quantum communications and quantum computing, quantum entanglement is a prerequisite. Scientists at the MPL have now demonstrated a particularly efficient way in which photons can be entangled with acoustic phonons.

Photonic computation with sound waves

Optical neural networks may provide the solution necessary to tackle challenging computing tasks. A challenge with thta is the reconfigurability of optical neural networks. Researchers have now succeeded in laying the foundation for new reconfigurable neuromorphic building blocks by adding a new dimension to photonic machine learning: sound waves.