Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL)

The Max Planck Society (MPG) is one of the largest research organisations in Germany with at present 76 institutes. The Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) is one of its newest institutes which was founded at 1 January 2009. It emerged from the Institute of Optics, Information and Photonics (IOIP, Managing Director: Prof. Dr. G. Leuchs) of the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg(FAU) which was partly financed by the MPG from 2004 to 2008 and also called Max Planck Research Group during this time. Of course, there are still close cooperations with the IOIP of the university. The MPL has at present about 140 co-workers, PhD and diploma students and about 30 are at the IOIP. The MPL houses the International Max Planck Research School “Optics and Imaging” (IMPRS), which is an interdisciplinary program for PhD students supported by the new MPL, several different faculties (Physics, Computer Science, Medicine) of the University, the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits and the company Siemens Medical Solutions. The IMPRS is also associated with the Erlangen Graduate School in Advanced Optical Technologies (SAOT) of the FAU which was established within the framework of the "Excellence Initiative by the German Federal and State Governments to Promote Science and Research at German Universities" and connects several institutes from the engineering faculty, medicine, physics and some non-university institutions.

The microoptics activities at IOIP started in 1986 with several projects on optical computing and optical interconnects, so that there is also a long tradition in this field.

Address

Günther-Scharowsky-Str. 1, Building 24
 91058 Erlangen

Germany

Website

http://mpl.mpg.de

Contact Person

Prof. Norbert Lindlein