Department News

Professor Andrea Cavalleri, founding director of the MPSD, is to be honored with the 2024 EPS Europhysics Prize by the European Physical Society. The EPS is awarding the Prize in recognition of his “pioneering studies of photo-induced emergent phases of quantum materials: from enhanced superconductivity to the control of materials topology”. more

The MPSD has officially opened its  new state-of-the-art research building in Hamburg. The President of the Max Planck Society, Professor Patrick Cramer, and the Second Mayor of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Science Senator Katharina Fegebank, were guests of honor at the opening ceremony.  more

Measurements of the fluctuations of the atomic positions in SrTiO₃ under mid-infrared light yield new insights into the creation of the material’s ferroelectric state. An MPSD research team reports in Nature Materials that the material transforms into a state of permanently ordered electrical dipoles.  more

Researchers at the MPSD have shown that a previously demonstrated ability to turn on superconductivity with a laser beam can be integrated on a chip, opening up a route toward opto-electronic applications.  more

Researchers from the Cavalleri group have discovered a far more efficient way to create a previously observed metastable, superconducting-like state in K₃C₆₀ using laser light. Their work has appeared in Nature Physics. more