News › ZEISS · Quan­tum phy­si­cist Prof. Dr. Imma­nuel Bloch wins the »ZEISS Rese­arch Award«

AWARD CEREMONY ON JUNE 26 AT THE GERMAN MUSEUM IN MUNICH

He is con­side­red one of the lea­ding sci­en­tists in the field of quan­tum phy­sics: Prof. Dr. Imma­nuel Bloch has been awarded the »ZEISS Rese­arch Award« for his fun­da­men­tal work in the field of expe­ri­men­tal quan­tum simu­la­tion using ultra­cold atoms.

The com­pany has been hono­ring out­stan­ding rese­arch achie­ve­ments in the fields of optics and pho­to­nics with this award since 1990. The award cerem­ony will take place on June 26 at the Deut­sches Museum in Munich. Three young sci­en­tists from Ger­many, Aus­tria and Switz­er­land will also be hono­red. They will receive the »Carl Zeiss Award for Young Researchers«.

World lea­der in quan­tum research

Every two years, ZEISS honors out­stan­ding rese­arch achie­ve­ments in the fields of optics and pho­to­nics with the »ZEISS Rese­arch Award.« This year, the award goes to Prof. Dr. Imma­nuel Bloch. Bloch, who holds a doc­to­rate in phy­sics, is sci­en­ti­fic direc­tor at the Max Planck Insti­tute of Quan­tum Optics in Gar­ching and pro­fes­sor of expe­ri­men­tal phy­sics at Lud­wig Maxi­mi­lian Uni­ver­sity (LMU) in Munich, and is con­side­red a pio­neer of quan­tum rese­arch. With highly com­plex opti­cal expe­ri­ments at the inter­face of quan­tum optics, quan­tum infor­ma­tion pro­ces­sing and solid-state phy­sics, he has estab­lished a new field of rese­arch: the study of arti­fi­cial quan­tum mat­ter using ultra­cold atoms in arti­fi­cial crys­tals of light, so-cal­led opti­cal lat­ti­ces. His work suc­ceeds in pre­cis­ely mea­su­ring and con­trol­ling the inter­play bet­ween atoms or small mole­cu­les with the help of ultra­cold quan­tum gases in order to bet­ter under­stand how quan­tum mate­ri­als such as super­con­duc­tors work. With this sci­en­ti­fic work, Imma­nuel Bloch paved the way for the new inter­di­sci­pli­nary field of quan­tum simulation.

»ZEISS Rese­arch Award«: ZEISS pro­mo­tes rese­arch and development

Making inno­va­tion pos­si­ble at the tech­ni­cal fron­tier. ZEISS is also com­mit­ted to this ambi­tion. Not only as an optics com­pany, but also as a tech­no­logy group in par­ti­cu­lar. Sci­ence and rese­arch play an important role in this. This is why ZEISS honors spe­cial achie­ve­ments in the fields of optics and pho­to­nics with the »ZEISS Rese­arch Award«. The award

was estab­lished back in 1990 as the »Carl Zeiss Rese­arch Award«. Since 2016, the »ZEISS Rese­arch Award« has been pre­sen­ted as its suc­ces­sor. Many of the 26 pre­vious award win­ners have sub­se­quently recei­ved other important awards – four of them even the Nobel Prize.

The fol­lo­wing aspects in par­ti­cu­lar apply to the awar­ding of the »ZEISS Rese­arch Award«: The can­di­da­tes have made out­stan­ding achie­ve­ments in the field of optics or pho­to­nics, are still active in rese­arch and their work has great poten­tial for fur­ther know­ledge and prac­ti­cal appli­ca­ti­ons. If both cri­te­ria are met, the rese­ar­chers are pro­po­sed to a jury of sci­en­ti­fic experts from around the world. The chair­man of this jury is Prof. Dr. Jür­gen Mly­nek from Hum­boldt Uni­ver­sity Berlin.

Carl Zeiss Award for Young Researchers

Dr. Simon Baier, Insti­tute for Expe­ri­men­tal Phy­sics, Uni­ver­sity of Inns­bruck, Austria.
Dr. Arin­dam Ghosh, Chair of Bio­tech­no­logy and Bio­phy­sics, Julius Maxi­mi­lian Uni­ver­sity of Würz­burg, Germany.

Inde­pen­dent of the »ZEISS Rese­arch Award«, the »Carl Zeiss Award for Young Rese­ar­chers« is awarded. This prize is offe­red by the Ernst Abbe Fund and is aimed spe­ci­fi­cally at young sci­en­tists. This year, three young talents will be honored:

Dr. Simon Baier from the Uni­ver­sity of Inns­bruck, Dr. Arin­dam Ghosh from the Julius Maxi­mi­li­ans Uni­ver­sity of Würz­burg and Dr. Dasha Neli­dova from the Uni­ver­sity of Basel, Dr. Dasha Neli­dova, Insti­tute of Mole­cu­lar and Cli­ni­cal Oph­thal­mo­logy, Basel, Switzerland.

Baier is working on quan­tum mecha­nics at the Insti­tute for Expe­ri­men­tal Phy­sics in Inns­bruck, Aus­tria. Ghosh does rese­arch in bio­tech­no­logy and bio­phy­sics. And Neli­dova is working on oph­thal­mo­logy at the Insti­tute of Mole­cu­lar and Cli­ni­cal Oph­thal­mo­logy in Basel. Among other things, she has deve­lo­ped a novel method for res­to­ring vision after blind­ness cau­sed by age-rela­ted macu­lar dege­ne­ra­tion – the most com­mon cause of blind­ness in indus­tria­li­zed countries.

Cerem­ony and award cerem­ony at the Deut­sches Museum

The sci­ence awards cerem­ony will take place in a spe­cial set­ting this year. ZEISS has invi­ted guests to the Deut­sches Museum on June 26. Around 200 guests from the fields of rese­arch, sci­ence and tech­no­logy are expec­ted to attend the cerem­ony. It will also take place one day before the »Laser World of Pho­to­nics,« the world’s lea­ding trade fair and con­gress for pho­to­nics com­pon­ents, sys­tems and appli­ca­ti­ons, which will be held in Munich from June 27 to 30.

In addi­tion to the pre­sen­ta­tion of the awards, the high­light of the ZEISS event at the Deut­sches Museum will be the key­note address by host and ZEISS CEO Dr. Karl Lam­precht, as well as spee­ches by jury chair­man Prof. Dr. Jür­gen Mly­nek of Hum­boldt Uni­ver­sity Ber­lin and Prof. Dr. Chris­tine Sil­ber­horn, Insti­tute for Pho­to­nic Quan­tum Sys­tems (PhoQS) at the Uni­ver­sity of Paderborn.