Photonics Days 2021
Jena virtually welcomes the young international Photonics community
Workshops, science and career insights – the Photonics Days 2021 had it all. Over 600 participants from all over the world took part in the network event of the Fraunhofer IOF and the Max Planck School of Photonics this year. We have summarized the highlights for you here.
"We are live!" were the magical words starting the Photonics Days Jena in the improvised streaming studio at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering (IOF). Just a few steps away from the coordination office of the Max Planck School of Photonics, the virtual event we had planned together for half a year began.
For the third time, the Fraunhofer IOF and the Max Planck School of Photonics jointly invited young international researchers for two days to listen to exciting scientific lectures, to attend workshops and to network with the German photonics industry at a career fair. Almost 600 photonics enthusiasts from all over the world followed this invitation and joined in virtually. And we spoiled them for choice: On a total of three “stages” they could, for example, follow a series of lectures on “Photonics for Future”, at which MPSP Fellows Prof. Jürgen Popp, Prof. Uwe Zeitner and Dr. Falk Eilenberger gave insights into your research, or tinkered on tricky problems at the Makeathon of the “Lichtwerkstatt Jena”. At the same time, the career fair took place on “stage 3”, where students and young professionals could network with well-known German industrial partners such as “Zeiss”, “Jenoptik” or “Trumpf”. The career fair took place this year in cooperation with OPTICA (formerly OSA).
Keynote lecture & Noble Talk: "A 40-year journey" with Prof. Reinhard Genzel
The program of workshops, science and career insights was mixed with sports sessions, a virtual escape game and two award ceremonies. At the “Hot Stuff Award” of the “Leistungszentrum Photonik”, Johannes Kretzschmar from the “Lichtwerkstatt Jena” was able to convince the audience. He and his team want to use the prize money to develop an inexpensive open source single photon detector. The “Applied Photonics Award”, which the Fraunhofer IOF awards annually for outstanding theses, went to Katrin Bihr (best bachelor thesis), Luise Hoffmann (best master thesis), Dr. Tobias Schnabel (best dissertation) and Dr. Take Christoph Stihler (prize for special application potential). More about their projects can be found here.
For the next year, if Corona allows, a hybrid event is planned that combines the best of “live” and “online”. On the one hand, the whole world will be invited to Jena again virtually to listen to lectures on our photonics research and inspiring keynotes. On the other hand, we also plan in-person workshops. In any case, we are already looking forward to the next Photonics Days and would like to thank all participants and speakers for the great event this year!
