The Astro2020 Decadal Survey White Paper quotes innoFSPEC as a leading Astrophotonics Institute.
The Astro2020 Decadal Survey is an extensive strategy process in the U.S.A., whose goal is to identify research priorities in Astrophysics over the next 10 years, with an important impact on government funding of major research infrastructure such as ground based observatories and space missions. The process has begun with an open call for ideas that was implemented through the collection of so-called White Papers on a variety of topics, with a deadline on July 10, 2019.
A White Paper by Gatkine et al. on the subject or Astrophotonics was made publicly available, closing with a recommendation to create a distributed, multidisciplinary Institute of Astrophotonics in the U.S.A.
innoFSPEC in Germany and CUDOS in Australia are mentioned as successful models for such an endeavour. The White Paper, co-authored by a number of prominent researchers from NASA and elsewhere, including Nobel laureate John Mather, is an encouraging confirmation of the mission and research strategy of innoFPEC Potsdam.
The Faculty of Science at University of Potsdam celebrated its 25th birthday on 27 June 2019, and innoFSPEC was highly appreciated during the ceremony. Dean Professor Helmut Elsenbeer emphasized the prominent role of innoFSPEC within the faculty. He underlined the successful development of the innovation centre as a hidden champion of the University. Besides, Professor Henrike Müller-Werkmeister highlighted the actitivities of innoFSPEC regarding applied research and transfer as part of her outlook towards the coming 25 years of the faculty. In particular, she referred to the transfer-oriented project GO:UP (BMBF, program ‚Innovative Hochschule‘) where, among others, innoFSPEC together with Potsdam Transfer is currently establishing interdisciplinary so-called joint labs with partners from industry and science. Last not least, Dean Elsenbeer denoted Prof. Ilko Bald, member of innoFSPEC, as outstanding scientist among the freshly recruited faculty.
We are especially proud of Wenke Müller, now M. Sc. chemistry student at University of Potsdam. She has just completed her Bachelor degree as best of her year and won the Leopold-von-Buch-Bachelor Award of the faculty for her excellent Bachelor thesis. She wrote her thesis „Synthesis and Optical Characterization of Particle Size Distribution of Wax Dispersions“ („Herstellung und Optische Charakterisierung der Partikelgrößenverteilung von Wachsdispersionen“) within innoFSPEC under the direct guidance of Dr. Lena Bressel (supervisor Prof. Dr. H.-G. Löhmannsröben). To make her achievement a complete success, Wenke Müller was also honored by President Oliver Günther at the central graduation ceremony: she is among the best Potsdam University graduates of year!
Congratulations, Wenke!
Wenke Müller with award at the Faculty’s anniversary celebration (credits: Silvia Adelhelm)
The Faculty of Science is the largest of the five faculties at the University of Potsdam. The majority of its departments are located in the Science Park in Potsdam-Golm. The Faculty of Science maintains close collaborative relationships with extramural research institutions in the Potsdam region in the form of joint professorships and numerous projects. These partnerships cover a broad spectrum from basic research to application-oriented research. The faculty also has cooperative relationships with several research institutions throughout Germany and the entire world. Over 80 professors teach and research at the faculty. They supervise almost 6,000 students and doctoral candidates.
On June 25/26 2019, an international team of experts, chaired by Martin Roth, were invited to review the conceptual design for an ultra-stable high resolution spectrograph at the 10.4 m Telescope GTC at La Palma, Canary Islands. The meeting was hosted by the Instituto Astrofisica de Canarias in La Laguna, Tenerife. For an estimated cost of 17 MEUR, a consortium of four partners is planning to build an ambitious, ultra-stable spectrograph for research on exoplanets, metal-poor stars, and other sciences cases. The consortium consists of NOAC, the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NOAC), the Nanjing Institute of Astronomical Optics & Technology (NIAOT), the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias(IAC), and GRANTECAN S.A., the company that is operating the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC). The design of the spectrograph is proceeding quickly and involves exciting astrophotonics technologies such as optimized optical fibers and laser frequency combs. GTC-HRS consortium members and the review panel in La Laguna, Tenerife Credit: GRANTECAN
Dr. Claudia Pacholski – head of the research group Optical Materials – succeded in prolongating her Heisenberg fellowship funded by the DFG. Thus, she will continue her work on the bottom-up fabrication of tailor-made plasmonic sensors for the specific and sensitive detection of target analytes in complex matrices. In this framework her work got additionally supported by a project grant of the DFG for developing chemical routes to prepare two-dimensional photonic crystal sensors equipped with nano/microcavities. Congratulations, Claudia!
3D-CANCER-SPEC is a new innoFSPEC transfer project as part of the EU ATTRACT initiative which recently started with a kick-off meeting at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. 3D-CANCER-SPEC will bring astronomical technology to bear against cancer, one of the leading cause of death worldwide. This project — coordinated by Martin Roth of innoFSPEC at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam — will combine the expertise of two partners involved in the development of the innovative MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. By doing so, the team will carry out a design study for an imaging spectrograph suitable for clinical cancer studies.
You can watch Martin Roth's pitch about the project here.
ATTRACT, a Horizon 2020 research and innovation project funded by the European Union and backed by a consortium of 9 partners including ESO, has announced 170 breakthrough ideas which will each receive €100,000 to develop technologies that have the potential to change society. The kick-off meeting has started the clock on a one-year countdown for the selected proposals to prove the scientific merit and innovation potential of their disruptive detection and imaging technologies.
