News & Events
2023
New application round for IMPRS Physics of Light
Looking for an ambitious Master's degree in Physics or PhD in Physics of Light?
APPLY NOW! APPLICATION DEADLINE: JANUARY 15, 2024
The clock is…
Strengthening ties
The 14th annual meeting of our IMPRS Physics of Light (IMPRS-PL) simultaneously became the 1st annual meeting of our IMPRS Physics of Medicine…
IMPRS Retreat
In 2023, the retreat was organized for June 19th and 20th at the hotel “Festung Rosenberg” in Kronach. To establish ties between IMPRS-PL and IMPRS-PM…
1st MPL Open Day
On May 2nd, 2023 we had our first MPL Open Day. The advertising event was implemented to present our excellent research facilities and the areas in…
Karim Almahayni invited to Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting
Karim Almahayni has been chosen as one of 635 young scientists to attend the prestigious Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. The MPL researcher from the…
MPL Alumni Prof. Daqing Wang receives prestigious ERC grant
Interview with Prof. Daqing Wang, an MPL alumni who is now a Tenure Track Professor at Kassel and just managed to secure a prestigious Starting Grant…
2022
Welcome to our IMPRS, Julius!
Julius Gohsrich graduated from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. During his bachelor and master program, he worked in the field of…
Autumnal IMPRS Monday Show
Today's IMPRS Monday Show at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light scored with a beautiful autumnal flair and a very interesting talk of…
Creating the laser hammer and winning the Nobel Prize: Donna Strickland visits MPL
Professor Donna Strickland visited the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Light (MPL) on October tenth, 2022, as part of the Distinguished…
Breakthrough in optical information transmission: One-Way Street for optical vortices
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light have managed for the first time to create a unidirectional device that significantly…
13th IMPRS Annual Meeting
This year's annual meeting - the 13th in a row - took place on October 7th at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in a completely new…
IMPRS Block Lectures
We had the pleasure of listening to two wonderful lectures from the pioneer in microscopy Colin Sheppard, who was visiting MPL this week. He told us…
Welcome to our IMPRS, Max!
Maxim Sirotin graduated with bachelor's and master's degrees from Lomonosov Moscow State University. His research began in the field of biophotonics…
Welcome to our IMPRS, Andrei!
Andrei Rasputnyi graduated from Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Physics, Department of Quantum Electronics. During the bachelor and…
Welcome to our IMPRS, Rajkumar!
Rajkumar Jadhav is doing his PhD in the Research Group of Birgit Stiller at MPL. His studies cover cavity optoacoustics and optomagnonics.
Deciphering protein complexes with Angstrom optical resolution
Cryogenic optical localization in three dimensions (COLD) has been shown to be a viable option for deciphering protein complexes at Angstrom-level.…
Improving quantum communication and computing with PALANTIRI
Birgit Stiller and Silvia Viola-Kusminskiy of MPL are working towards making long-distance quantum communication and wireless communication more…
Additional Skills Course
On May 30th-31st, 2022, IMPRS hosted a workshop at MPL on ‘Project and Time Management for Scientists’ with Dr. Alexander Britz. Day one focused on…
Director Vahid Sandoghdar portrayed in Nature Methods
Director Vahid Sandoghdar is a physicist who explores biology’s unknowns, with greater precision by linking two methods. He has been covered in this…
A look back at the Long Night of Science
As part of the largest science festival in the region, MPL also opened its doors to the general public. More than 1,000 interested people visited the…
Christoph Marquardt has been appointed professor at FAU
Christoph Marquardt, who heads the independent research group for quantum information processing at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light…
A new method for exploring the nano-world
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) and Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin (MPZPM) in Erlangen present a…
A step forward in modern quantum technology: frequency conversion of single photons at arbitrary wavelengths
Quanta of light - photons - form the basis of quantum key distribution in modern cryptographic networks. Before the huge potential of quantum…
Director Jochen Guck honored by the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Jochen Guck received the Wilhelm Ostwald Medal of the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig, which is usually awarded annually to a…
Twisted photonic technology for measuring the safety and efficacy of drugs
Measuring the chirality – the lack of symmetry upon reflection – of substances is of fundamental importance to pharmacology. Until now, this has been…
How elegant equations help to understand quantum materials
Flore Kunst likes to manipulate formulas as if to stretch, twist and crumple – but only on paper and with her computer. The leader of a new research…
2021
New Seminar Series: IMPRS Monday Show
The International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) Physics of Light has successfully launched an event for PhD students at the Erlanger MPI.
Open positions at the IMPRS Physics of Light!
The International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) Physics of Light, established at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL),…
12th IMPRS Annual Meeting
Our 12th IMPRS Annual Meeting took place from October 6th to 8th, 2021. It was organized at MPL in a hybrid format.
The event was open to all MPL…
IMPRS cake & coffee
At long last … we (meaning the IMPRS students and coordinators) were able to have a nice little gathering (outside of course), enjoying cake & coffee.…
How to be confident and persuasive in academia!
... that was the topic of our first two-days soft skill course in 2021 given by Barty Warren-Kretzschmar from Golin Wissenschaftsmanagment.
Unfortuna…
Florian Marquardt in the podcast of "Welt der Physik"
The podcast of the German magazine "Welt der Physik" (World of Physics) interviewed the Director of our Theory Division, Florian Marquardt, for an…
Horizon Award for Leonhard Möckl
The British Royal Society of Chemistry has awarded a research team for their work on the protective sugar coat of cells, which included the scientist…
Artificial Intelligence to discover simplified descriptions of complex phenomena
Automatically finding collective coordinates of a physical system by analyzing and optimizing their information content
Three decades of photonic crystal fibres: new ways to control light
Fibres made of special glass and filled with a defined pattern of microscopic hollow channels are helping to better understand the sometimes strange…
Welcome to our IMPRS, Karim!
Karim Almahayni came with a very interdisciplinary background from the University of Oxford and is now doing his PhD in the Möckl Research Group at…
Welcome to our IMPRS, Faezeh!
Faezeh Nejati Hatamian did her BSc studies in Information Technology in Iran and then came for her MSc studies to Germany. She is now doing her PhD at…
Welcome to our IMPRS, Christoph!
Christoph Schönle is doing his PhD in the Theory Division of MPL under the supervision of Prof. Florian Marquardt. For his PhD thesis he is focussing…
2020
Maria Chekhova appointed FAU professor
Maria Chekhova, head of the independent research group Quantum Radiation, was appointed professor (20%) at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität…
Yazgan Tuna obtained his doctoral degree
Congratulations! On November 19, 2020, Yazgan successfully defended his doctoral PhD thesis on “Electrostatic Trapping and Anomalous Diffusion of Gold…
Daqing Wang wins German Physical Society (DPG) dissertation award
Congratulations! On November 13, 2020, Daqing received the German Physical Society (DPG) dissertation award (AMOP Section) for his dissertation…
IMPRS annual meeting 2020
The Annual Meeting 2020, organized by the International Max Planck Research School Physics of Light (IMPRS-PL), took place between October 21st and 23…
Research group leader Birgit Stiller interviewed on Deutschlandfunk
Birgit Stiller appeared on a podcast of the series "Forschung aktuell" broadcasted by Deutschlandfunk. She talked about her research on converting…
Jochen Guck appointed FAU professor
Jochen Guck, Director of the Division Biological Optomechanics, was appointed professor at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg…
Hsuan-Wei Liu earned his doctoral degree
Congratulations! In July 2020 Hsuan-Wei Liu successfully defended his doctoral thesis on “Strong Near-Field Coupling of Single Emitters to Plasmonic…
Congratulations to Jasmin!
Today Jasmin Graf defended online her “mini-thesis” as part of the IMPRS PhD program, and passed with flying colors! Congratulations to Jasmin!
Soft Skill Course: Job applications in & outside academia: Understanding standards – developing a personal approach
Career counsellor Jacqueline von Saldern from Golin Wissenschaftsmanagement, Berlin, will coach this workshop on June 9th and 10th, 2020. The course…
Daqing Wang has been granted „the 2019 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Student Abroad“
Congratulations! In February 2020 Daqing Wang was granted „the 2019 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Student Abroad“ by China…
2019
10th IMPRS Annual Meeting & 6th Autumn Academy
The joint Annual Meeting and Autumn Academy 2019, took place between October 7th and 11th. 45 students, supervisors and external speakers all met in…
MPL PhD student awarded for best conference poster
Gaetano Frascella, PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, was awarded for the best poster at this year`s “Quantum“…
Otto Hahn Prize Winners Honoured
The Max Planck Society awards highest distinction for junior scientists at its Annual Meeting.
28 early career researchers were awarded the Otto Hahn…
IMPRS course: Blender training
Organized by our student spokesperson Sona, we had a 2-day Blender Course from April 25th to 26th. The trainer Gottfried Hofmann did a very good job…
2018
Christmas get-together
Pictures from the Christmas get-together of IMPRS students on December 17th,
including Punsch, Lebkuchen & Erlanger Weihnachtsmarkt.
We wish all IMPRS students, alumni, family and friends
Merry Christmas
and a happy New Year 2019!
9th IMPRS Annual Meeting & 5th MPL Autumn Academy
We were teaming up with the successful MPL Autumn Academy series and jointly held our 9th IMPRS-PL Annual Meeting in Gößweinstein, Germany from October 9th to 12th, 2018. Talks from IMPRS students, poster sessions, lab tours at MPL, block lectures by Andreas Maier (FAU) and Florian Marquardt (MPL) and invited talks by Kerry Vahala (Caltech, USA), Lorenzo Marrucci (Università di Napoli Federico II, Italy), Dorothea Samtleben (University Leiden, The Netherlands) and Nicolas Treps (Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, France) covered intriguing research areas. Evening discussions and jointly spent coffee breaks stimulated a lot of fruitful scientific exchange between the master students of the 5th MPL Autumn Academy, the IMPRS students and the invited professors.
Mallika Suresh received the best poster award whereas Golnoush Shafiee won the award for the best student talk. Sona Davtyan was elected as student spokesperson for the upcoming year.
Soft skill course about "Project Management"
Once or twice a year, IMPRS-PL organizes soft skills courses. In 2018, Rüdiger Herbst (ChallengeLearning) gave a two-day course on "project management".
In previous years we have been taught by Justin Mullins and Mark Buchanan (writeaboutscience.com) how to write scientific papers and documents and Dr Dennis Fink (Mediomix) discussed with us the different career options for post-docs in his seminar about “Career building for scientists”.
2017
8th IMPRS Annual Meeting
The 2017 IMPRS Annual Meeting meeting was held in Gößweinstein from September 25th to 28th, 2017. Invited talks and block-lectures were given by Antoine Kouchner (Paris Diderot University), Christoph Lienau (University of Oldenburg), Allard Mosk (Utrecht University), Isabelle Staude (FSU Jena), Stephan Götzinger (MPL Erlangen) and Joachim von Zanthier (FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg). Golnoush Shafiee was elected as the Student Spokesperson 2017/2018. Cameron Okoth and Golnoush Shafiee received the best poster award and best talk award respectively.
Soft Skill Course in 2017
In 2017, Justin Mullins and Mark Buchanan (writeaboutscience.com) taught us how to write scientific papers and documents in a 2-day seminar.
before 2017
7th IMPRS Annual Meeting in 2016
The 7th IMPRS Physics of Light annual meeting was held on September 26 -29, 2016 in Behringersmühle, Gößweinstein. The 4-day programme included four invited talks, two block lectures, student talks, a panel discussion, posters presentation and get-together. It was our pleasure to have Pierre Berini (University of Ottawa), Sonja Franke-Arnold (University of Glasgow), Romain Quidant (ICFO, Barcelona) and Tomas Cizmar (University of Dundee) as our invited speakers. Block lectures were delivered by Philip Russell and Norbert Lindlein. Sivaraman Subramanian (Vollmer Research Group) took the Best Student Talk Award while Golnoush Shafiee (Quantum Information Processing) and Veronika Ludwig (FAU) both received the Best Poster Awards.
IMPRS Symposium for the Science of Light in 2016
From April 24th-26th 2016, MPL hosted a two-day symposium organised by students in the two International Max Planck Research Schools in Erlangen (IMPRS-Physics of Light) and Munich (IMPRS-Advanced Photonic Science), as well as the Max Planck/University of Ottawa Centre for Extreme and Quantum Photonics. Around 90 Masters and PhD students attended lectures by leading experts in many different fields of optics and photonics.
Soft skill course in 2016
Once or twice a year, IMPRS-PL organizes soft skills courses. In 2016, Dr Dennis Fink (from Mediomix) gave a full-day course on “Career building for scientists”, in which he discussed the different career options for post-docs.
In 2017, Justin Mullins and Mark Buchanan (writeaboutscience.com) taught us how to write scientific papers and documents in a 2-day seminar.
6th IMPRS Annual Meeting in 2015
The sixth annual meeting of the IMPRS Physics of Light took place in Gößweinstein from October 5-8, 2015. Invited lectures were given by Anne Sentenac (L’Institut Fresnel), Jean-Michel Gérard (Institute for Nanoscience and Cryogeny, CEA), Mikael Käll (Chalmers University of Technology) and Albert Stolow (University of Ottawa). The programme also included two block lectures by Peter Hommelhoff (FAU) and Christoph Marquardt (MPL) as well as student talks, poster presentations and a panel discussion. Ankan Bag (Optics & Information) was awarded the prize for the best student talk and Ramin Beravat (Photonic Crystal Fibre Science) received the best poster award.
5th IMPRS Annual Meeting in 2014
The fifth Annual Meeting of IMPRS Physics of Light took place in Egloffstein September 22-25, 2014. Invited lectures were given by Prof. Monika Ritsch-Marte (Medical University of Innsbruck), Prof. Michael Downer (University of Texas), Prof. Markus Aspelmeyer (University of Vienna) and Kobus Kuipers (FOM Institute AMOLF). The programme also included block lectures by MPL's Prof. Stephan Götzinger and Frank Vollmer, as well as talks and poster presentations by the IMPRS students. The best talk award went to Georg Epple, and Roland Lauter received the prize for the best poster.
4th IMPRS Annual Meeting in 2013
The fourth Annual Meeting of the Erlangen IMPRS took place in Gößweinstein 16-19 September 2013. Invited lectures were given by Arno Rauschenbeutel (TU Wien), Allard Mosk (University of Twente), Alexander Rohrbach (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg) and Oskar Painter (MPL). The program also included block lectures by IMPRS advisors Ulf Peschel and Maria Chekhova, as well as great talks and poster presentations by the IMPRS students. Best talk awards went to Michael Schmidberger and Robert Buschlinger, and Roland Lauter received this year’s poster prize.
3rd IMPRS Annual Meeting in 2012
The third IMPRS Annual Meeting took place 17-20 September 2012 in Schnaittach-Osternohe, a small town deep in the countryside some 30 km east of Erlangen. We had a great line-up of invited speakers: Paul Corkum from the University of Ottawa, Claude Fabre from the Ecole National Supérieure in Paris, Jeremy Baumberg from the University of Cambridge and Andreas Tünnermann from the Fraunhofer Institute (IOF) in Jena. At the end of the meeting Oliver Schmidt received the award for the best student talk and poster prize was given to Sarah Unterkofler.
2nd IMPRS Annual Meeting in 2011
The second IMPRS Annual Meeting was held 26-31 September 2011 at the Welcome Hotel in Bamberg. Invited lecturers included Miles Padgett (Glasgow University), Daniel Rückert (Imperial College), Eberhard Riedle (LMU, Munich), and Femius Koenderink (AMOLF, Amsterdam). Students and advisors took part in an extended poster session, a panel discussion and evening strolls in Bamberg's beautiful city centre. Eva Eibenberger received the best poster award and Christian Weis the award for the best student talk.
1st IMPRS Annual Meeting in 2010
The 1st IMPRS Annual Meeting took place from October 4th-8th, 2010 in the hotel Behringersmühle near Gößweinstein. Invited talks were given by Prof Arno Rauschenbeutel (University of Mainz), Prof Stefan Maier (Imperial College, London), Dr Fabio Biancalana (MPL), Prof Martin Wegener (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) and Dr Clemens Kaminski (Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge). The block lecturers were Prof Joachim Hornegger (Pattern Recognition Lab at FAU), Prof Philip Russell (MPL) and Prof Norbert Lindlein (FAU). The awards for the best student talk and the best posters were given to Marta Ziemienczuk (best talk), Sarah Unterkofler, Attila Budai and Christian Weis (best posters).
IMPRS Interdisciplinary Symposium 2010 “New Frontiers in Science”
In 2009 the IMPRS-PL (then IMPRS-OPTIM) students were invited to attend the IMPRS symposium “New Frontiers in Science” which consisted of a series of interdisciplinary talks aimed at the PhD students from several IMPRSs. In total about 20 IMPRS students from Erlangen attended this meeting in Munich and enjoyed an interesting and well-organized programme. During a visit of the IMPRS-APS to Erlangen at the end of 2009, our students were asked to participate not only in the IMPRS symposium itself but also to help with its organization. Several of our IMPRS students were enthusiastic about the idea and joined the planning group. With the help of PhD students from all the participating IMPRSs, a very successful symposium was held again in Munich in November 2010.
