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” at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) and…

Congratulations to Julia Kolb, who graduated with an outstanding PhD thesis on SLRPs in spinal cord injury.

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).

On October 16th the second joint annual meeting of our two IMPRS Physics of Light and IMPRS Physics and Medicine took place at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light. In the afternoon we had a poster session where all students and PIs from MPL, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität…

Daniel Wehner has been decorated with the RISING STAR AWARD by the International Society for Regenerative Biology (ISRB). The prize honors early-career scientists charting new directions in regenerative biology and whose scientific contributions will have a lasting impact on research in the field.…

The three-day celebrations to mark the opening of the new Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin in Erlangen culminated in a ceremony on September 20th, 2024, attended by around 120 invited guests. Addresses from the Bavarian Minister President Dr. Markus Söder and the State Ministers Hubert…

On 20 September 2024, the new Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin, Erlangen was opened in the presence of The Bavarian Minister-President Dr. Markus Söder and the State Ministers Hubert Aiwanger and Markus Blume, as well as numerous prominent guests from the fields of science, society and…

Numerous guests of honor including Dr. Markus Söder (Minister President of Bavaria), Hubert Aiwanger (Minister of State for Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy) and Markus Blume (Minister of State for Science and the Arts), Nobel Prize winners from the USA and Germany and renowned…

At the medical faculty of the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) a new professorship in Nano-Optical Imaging has been established. Since 1st September 2024 it has been occupied by Prof. Dr. Leonhard Möckl. It will be the first professorship to move into the new research building…

Dr. Hanieh Fattahi from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) is delighted to have been awarded the prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant and will receive around two million euros in funding over a period of five years. The head of the ‘Femtosecond Fieldoscopy’ research group will…

Congratulations! On July 19, 2024, Paul Beck successfully defended his doctoral thesis on „Structured light matter interactions at the micro- and nanoscale - Towards all-integrated nano-metrology and magneto-optical effects“.

Congratulations! On July 15, 2024, Andreas Geilen successfully defended his doctoral thesis on „Thermodynamics for Advancing and Controlling Brillouin Scattering“.

On June 27th and 28th, the annual meeting of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation will take place. Professor Jochen Guck, Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL), has been invited to give the keynote lecture at the opening ceremony, which will also be broadcast live.

IFIMAC PhD students Beatriz Viña, Anna-Luisa Römling, Diego Fernández and Jose Antonio Moreno interviewed Vahid Sandoghdar. Diego also talked to Vahid about his research and his personal experiences during his career in basic research.

Watch interview here.

On May 2nd ad 3rd our joint retreat of IMPRS Physics of Light and IMPRS Physics and Medicine took place at the RiesenGebirge Hotel in Neuhof an der Zenn.

Lightning talks took place on the first day, in which the Master's and PhD students introduced themselves. There were also interesting and…

On April 25^th our second „FAU meets IMPRS”-Event took place in the Foyer of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light. We invited interested FAU Bachelor and Master students from the fields of Physics, Medical Engineering, Molecular Medicine and Integrated Life Sciences (ILS), to whom we…

The 20th century witnessed the emergence of many paradigm-shifting technologies from the physics community, which have revolutionized medical diagnostics and patient care. However, fundamental medical research has been mostly guided by methods from areas such as cell biology, biochemistry, and…

Flore Kunst, Lise Meitner Research Group Leader, is the new Equal Opportunities Officer at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen and, as an award-winning researcher in a leading position, represents a role model for young female scientists in top international research.

Tomohisa Toda, Professor of Neural Epigenomics at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) has been awarded another European Research Council (ERC) grant to investigate the roles of long-lived nuclear RNA in the maintenance of brain function and brain ageing. Most of his research will…

Looking for an ambitious Master's degree in Physics or PhD in Physics of Light?

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The clock is ticking for those of you looking for an ambitious master's degree in Physics or PhD in the Physics of Light!

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IMPRS Annual Meeting

Congratulations to Maximilian Eiche and Julia Kolb for winning this year's IMPRS poster awards!

The 14th annual meeting of our IMPRS Physics of Light (IMPRS-PL) simultaneously became the 1^st annual meeting of our IMPRS Physics of Medicine (IMPRS-PM). The conference for both graduate programs took place on October 18^th and was designed to deepen collaborations not only between IMPRS-PL and…

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 and encourage collaboration between all students, the decision was taken to have a joint retreat of both research schools.

Its program included…

Learn more about our great International Max Planck Research School Physics of Light (IMPRS), what it's like working at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) doing your Master's degree or PhD and how the team at MPL support you in the new IMPRS movie.

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 which our scientists concentrate to interested Bachelor’s and Master’s students from FAU.

Previously many local students had not known about the…

Karim Almahayni has been chosen as one of 635 young scientists to attend the prestigious Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. The MPL researcher from the group of Leonhard Möckl will have the chance to meet around 40 Nobel Laureates from the field of Physiology/Medicine.

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 from the European Research Council (ERC)

Julius Gohsrich graduated from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. During his bachelor and master program, he worked in the field of quantum gravity and on the theory of whispering gallery modes, the latter was done in collaboration with MPL. Julius is now a PhD student in the…

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 our IMPRS-PL student Timo Eckstein.

In ten minutes he provided his fellow students with insights into time evolution of periodically driven systems on…

Professor Donna Strickland visited the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Light (MPL) on October tenth, 2022, as part of the Distinguished Lecturer Series (DLS) and gave a talk on the work that won her the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light have managed for the first time to create a unidirectional device that significantly increases the quality of a special class of transmitted signals in optical communications: optical vortices. By transmitting selective optical vortex…

Here are the winners of this year's best poster award!

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 format.

After a short welcome, the head of our steering committee Vahid Sandoghdar gave a detailed report about the last IMPRS year which led to…

Maxim Sirotin graduated with bachelor's and master's degrees from Lomonosov Moscow State University. His research began in the field of biophotonics with the development of new methods based on optical tweezers and optical coherence tomography. In his master's degree, Maxim focused on developing…

Andrei Rasputnyi graduated from Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Physics, Department of Quantum Electronics. During the bachelor and master program, his study aimed at experimental and theoretical aspects of light-matter interaction and quantum nonlinear optics. Now he is a PhD student…

Rajkumar Jadhav is doing his PhD in the Research Group of Birgit Stiller at MPL. His studies cover cavity optoacoustics and optomagnonics.

On Thursday July 28th, 2022 we had our first scientific and social gathering of IMPRS-PM. An interdisclipinary poster session enabled the students to get to know each other and delve into discussions with each other and with the participating supervisors.

We also had an interesting walk to the…

Cryogenic optical localization in three dimensions (COLD) has been shown to be a viable option for deciphering protein complexes at Angstrom-level. However, previous work was severely limited in the number of resolved fluorophores. A new approach, titled ‘polarCOLD’ has now pushed the boundaries for…

Birgit Stiller and Silvia Viola-Kusminskiy of MPL are working towards making long-distance quantum communication and wireless communication more efficient as part of an EU Pathfinder research project named PALANTIRI.

Director Vahid Sandoghdar is a physicist who explores biology’s unknowns, with greater precision by linking two methods. He has been covered in this month’s issue of the scientific journal Nature Methods under the rubric „The Author File“. He talks about the research he and his team just published…

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 institute during the Long Night of Science to learn more about the research at MPL in a diverse program with lab tours, demonstrations and talks.

Christoph Marquardt, who heads the independent research group for quantum information processing at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL), has been appointed as a tenured professor at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen Nuremberg (FAU).

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 significant step forward in the characterization of nanoparticles. They used a special microscopy method based on interferometry to outperform existing…

Quanta of light - photons - form the basis of quantum key distribution in modern cryptographic networks. Before the huge potential of quantum technology is fully realized, however, several challenges remain. A solution to one of these has now been found.

Jochen Guck received the Wilhelm Ostwald Medal of the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig, which is usually awarded annually to a scientist in recognition of outstanding scientific achievements.

Measuring the chirality – the lack of symmetry upon reflection – of substances is of fundamental importance to pharmacology. Until now, this has been a very time-consuming and inefficient process. Fast and high sensitivity chiral sensors could become game-changers in drug discovery and nanomedicine.

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 group at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) in Erlangen uses advanced mathematical concepts like topology and from quantum…

The International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) Physics of Light has successfully launched an event for PhD students at the Erlanger MPI.

The International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) Physics of Light, established at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL), announces this year’s call for student positions.

Excellent candidates interested in all aspects of the science of light (topics include biophotonics,…

Our 12th IMPRS Annual Meeting took place from October 6^th to 8^th, 2021. It was organized at MPL in a hybrid format.

The event was open to all MPL colleagues online whereas the IMPRS students were able to meet in person in our Leuchs-Russell-Auditorium. The accompanying technical challenges were met…

At long last … we (meaning the IMPRS students and coordinators) were able to have a nice little gathering (outside of course), enjoying cake & coffee. Most of us did see each other for the very first time “in real life” after all …

The podcast of the German magazine "Welt der Physik" (World of Physics) interviewed the Director of our Theory Division, Florian Marquardt, for an episode about Artificial Intelligence. He explains how researchers are using the human brain as a model to develop artificial intelligence with the help…

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 from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light. For the first time, it is now possible to study in detail how certain enzymes modify proteins…

Automatically finding collective coordinates of a physical system by analyzing and optimizing their information content

Fibres made of special glass and filled with a defined pattern of microscopic hollow channels are helping to better understand the sometimes strange properties of light. And they have led to a broad spectrum of real-world applications – from communications to medicine and environmental sensing. In a…

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 MPL under the supervision of Dr. Leonhard Möckl. His research interests combine biophysics, biophotonics and machine learning. For his PhD thesis he is…

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 the Pattern Recognition Lab at FAU under the supervision of Prof. Andreas Maier. Her research interests are for example Artificial Intelligence and…

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 on machine learning and its applications to physics. He is specifically interested in generative neural networks and how they can be used for tasks…

Congratulations! On November 19, 2020, Yazgan successfully defended his doctoral PhD thesis on “Electrostatic Trapping and Anomalous Diffusion of Gold Nanoparticles“

The Annual Meeting 2020, organized by the International Max Planck Research School Physics of Light (IMPRS-PL), took place between October 21^st and 23^rd.

30 students, supervisors and external speakers all met in a virtual setting for three days of learning, exchanging ideas and socializing.…

Birgit Stiller appeared on a podcast of the series "Forschung aktuell" broadcasted by Deutschlandfunk. She talked about her research on converting light to sound and how to achieve longer storage times.

Jochen Guck, Director of the Division Biological Optomechanics, was appointed professor at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). He will be Professor of Biological Optomechanics.

Jochen Guck is also founding director of the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin, which is…

Congratulations! In July 2020 Hsuan-Wei Liu successfully defended his doctoral thesis on “Strong Near-Field Coupling of Single Emitters to Plasmonic Nanoantennas”

Today Jasmin Graf defended online her “mini-thesis” as part of the IMPRS PhD program, and passed with flying colors! Congratulations to Jasmin!

Congratulations! In February 2020 Daqing Wang was granted „the 2019 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Student Abroad“ by China Scholarship Council.

This Award, starting in 2003, was founded by the Chinese government with the purpose of rewarding the academic excellence of…

The joint Annual Meeting and Autumn Academy 2019, took place between October 7^th and 11^th. 45 students, supervisors and external speakers all met in Kühnhofen near Hersbruck for a week of learning, exchanging ideas and socializing. Students presented their work during talks and attended block…

We wish all IMPRS students, alumni, family and friends

Merry Christmas

and a happy New Year 2019!

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)…