News

Joshua Mornhinweg receives the dissertation prize of the faculty of physics!

We congratulate Joshua Mornhinweg on being awarded the Dissertation Prize by the Faculty of Physics at the University of Regensburg for his remarkable PhD thesis, titled "Tailoring and Non-Adiabatic Control of Deep-Strong Light-Matter Coupling." This prize, sponsored by the Wilhelm and Else Heraeus Foundation, recognizes an exceptional doctoral thesis in physics and comes with an endowment of €4000.

Josef Riepl receives the Best Tutor Award of the faculty of physics

We are happy to announce that Josef Riepl won the Best Tutor Award of the Faculty of Physics at the University of Regensburg. The price recognizes his outstanding job in teaching and explaining the physics of electrodynamics. Congratulations, Josef!

Vertical voyage in metal halide perovskites

© Brad Baxley, PtW

We have developed an approach based on ultrafast near-field microscopy that has allowed us to probe the nanoscale topography, crystallographic phase and chemical composition of metal halide perovskite films, while simultaneously extracting the ultrafast vertical carrier dynamics from femtosecond shifts in the pump-induced response following photoexcitation. This has revealed a surprising robustness of vertical charge transport towards nanoscale structural and compositional variations.

The results obtained in a close collaboration with the group of Michael Johnston (University of Oxford) have appeared in Nature Photonics. ... more

Felix Schiegl receives QMSL 2024 best oral presentation award

We congratulate Felix Schiegl on winning the best oral presentation award of the 2024 International workshop Quantum Materials and Structured Light (QMSL) in Erice with his talk titled "All-Optical Subcycle Microscopy of Quantum Materials at the Atomic Scale". The prize honours original contributions to the conference from outstanding student attendees. ... more

Atomic-scale telegraphy with light

© Brad Baxley, PtW

We have discovered an entirely unforeseen quantum-mechanical contrast mechanism that finally enables all-optical microscopy to achieve atomic resolution while retaining subcycle temporal precision. This new concept allows us to directly trace the quantum flow of electrons on their intrinsic length and time scales.

The results obtained in a close collaboration with the group of Jan Wilhelm (University of Regensburg) have appeared in Nature. ... more

Quantum dance to the beat of a drum: Coverstory in Nature Photonics

© Brad Baxley, PtW

We have established ultrafast scanning tunnelling spectroscopy on the femtosecond time, atomic length and milli-electron-volt energy scale. This has allowed us to directly resolve the energy shift of a single atomic defect in a monolayer of tungsten diselenide due to drum-like phonon vibrations.

The results obtained in a close collaboration with the groups of Jascha Repp (University of Regensburg) and Jan Wilhelm (University of Regensburg) have appeared in Nature Photonics.... more

Mode-multiplexing deep-strong light-matter coupling

In close collaboration with the groups of Dominique Bougeard (UR) and Christoph Lange (TU Dortmund), we were able to reach record-breaking, deep-strong light-matter coupling with a coupling strength of up to 3.19. This, for the first time, creates vacuum ground state populations exceeding 1 virtual excitation quantum.

The results have been published in Nature Communications.... more

Best Lecture Award

Our lecture on Light Matter Interaction was awarded with the Best Lecture Award of the Faculty of Physics. Image (from left to right): Manuel Meierhofer, Rupert Huber, Simon Maier, Marlene Liebich
Missing: Markus Huber... more

Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship for Joshua Mornhinweg

Congratulations to Joshua Mornhinweg for being awarded the prestigious “Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship” from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation! The fellowship recognizes Joshua’s outstanding scientific work on deep-strong light-matter coupling and will allow Joshua to join the group of Prof. Federico Capasso at Harvard University to work on novel “polaritonic and superconducting reconfigurable THz metasurfaces”.

Graduate Research Training Group 2905 funded

© Brad Baxley, PtW

The new Graduate Research Training Group 2905 - "Ultrafast nanoscopy - from single particle dynamics to cooperative processes" - will be funded for five years.

The program will start April 2024 and allows graduate researchers to unveil the internal dynamics of the elementary building blocks of matter. Novel concepts of nanovideography will be pioneered to resolve atomic-scale dynamics and to trace ensuing cooperative processes in systems of increasing complexity directly in ultraslow-motion pictures. The discoveries could find applications in future nano- and optoelectronics, quantum technologies and green technologies.

Press release (UR) in German and English.
Press release (idw) in German and English.... more

Josef Freudenstein receives IRMMW-THz 2023 best student presentation award

We congratulate Josef Freudenstein on winning the first prize of the best student presentation award of the 2023 International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz) in Montréal. The prize honours original contributions to the conference from outstanding student attendees and was awarded for his talk titled “Attoclocking delocalized Bloch electrons with multi-terahertz fields".

Our latest review on lightwave electronics in condensed matter has appeared

In collaboration with Mackillo Kira and Markus Borsch from the University of Michigan, we have reviewed the field of lightwave electronics ranging from high-harmonic generation to subcycle imaging concepts. The review has been published in Nature Reviews Materials.

Best Lecture Award & Best Tutor Award

Our lecture on physics of atoms and molecules was awarded with the Best Lecture Award of the Faculty of Physics. Martin Zizlsperger also received the Best Tutor Award, congratulations!

Image (from left to right): Markus Huber (front), Rupert Huber (back), Carmen Roelcke, Simon Maier (front), Marlene Liebich (back), Felix Schiegl, Manuel Meierhofer, Martin Zizlsperger (inset)
Missing: Josef Riepl... more

How electrons dress up in light

In close collaboration with the group of Ulrich Höfer (University of Marburg), we observed the ultrafast birth, rise, and collapse of a Floquet-Bloch band structure, for the first time. Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy combined with atomically strong light fields revealed that Floquet-Bloch bands form already after a single optical cycle and play an intriguing role in high-harmonic generation. These surprising findings pave the way to tailored quantum functionalities and ultrafast electronics. Theoretical modeling by Michael Schüler (Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen) and Michael Sentef (MPI Hamburg) convincingly supported the conclusions. The results have been published in Nature.

Svenja Nerreter selected as 2023 Optica Women Scholar

We are thrilled to announce that Svenja Nerreter has been selected as an Optica Women Scholar 2023. This exceptional award recognizes outstanding Bachelor's and Master's students in the field of optics and photonics, and comes with a grant of $10,000 and access to a valuable mentoring platform. Congratulations, Svenja! Press release (UR) in German