It is that time of the year again: DPG-Spring Meeting will bring the Atom, Molecule, Quantum Optic and Photonik (SAMOP) community to Hannover. Our group will present contributions on:

• Deep Learning Accelerated FDFD Simulations in Context of Inverse-Design Algorithms (Lukas Schulte, Tuesday, 7.3., 16:30, Q22.76)
• Fabrication of Computer-Generated Nanophotonic Devices (David Lemli, Tuesday, 7.3., 16:30, Q22.84)
• Teaching Quantum Optics and Quantum Cryptography with Augmented Reality Enhanced Experiments (Adrian Abazi, Wednesday, 8.3., 12:30, Q23.7)
• A Novel Approach to Nanophotonic Black-Box Optimization Through Reinforcement Learning (Marco Butz, Wednesday, 8.3., 11:00, Q30.1)
• Waveguide-coupled superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors enhanced by subwavelength grating metamaterials (Alejandro Sánchez Postigo, Wednesday, 8.3., 15:00, Q35.3)
• The Twente-Münster high-speed quantum key distribution link (Niklas Humberg, Wednesday, 8.3., 16:30, QI23.47)
• Waveguide-Intergrated Superconducting Nanowire Avalanche Single-Photon Detectors (Connor A. Graham-Scott, Wednesday, 8.3., 17:30, Q44.3)
• Multi-channel waveguide-integrated single photon sources (Chaiyasit Nenbangkaeo, Thursday, 9.3., 16:00, Q53.6)
• 3D Printed Optical Waveguide Structures with Microdiamonds containing NV Centers (Marina Peters, Thursday, 9.3., 16:30, Q59.62)

Starting next week, our group will again contribute to three out of the four DPG spring meetings this year!
Matthias (Q11.2), Jan (Q31.8), Marco (Q38.2), and Alex (Q53.4) will have oral contributions, Connor (Q40.11) and Tobias (Q41.12) will present posters on the SAMOP meeting (14.-18.3.). Paul (DD3.3) and Adrian (DD17.1) will have oral contributions and Jonas (DD37.2) will present a poster on the SMuK meeting (21.-25.3.). And Anthony will present our joint work with the AG Wurstbauer on the SKM meeting, which was shifted to September.

North Rhine-Westphalia strengthens Education, Innovation, and Networking (EIN) in quantum technologies. The University of Münster is among the twelve founding members of the "EIN Quantum NRW" network, which counts with strong endorsement from Hendirk Wüst, Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the Ministry of Culture and Science and the Ministry of Economics, Innovation, Digitization, and Energy.

Today is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, featuring Lisa, who is currently holding an INSPIRE Potentials SPIN Master’s fellowship, speaking about her experience in science.

We are very happy to be selected for one of the U Twente - WWU Münster Collaboration Grants with our partner Prof. Pepijn Pinkse at MESA+ and the Faculty of Science and Technology in Twente!
We will be working on a new international Quantum Key Distribution Link between our universities using modern nanophotonic chips with superconducting nanowire single photon detectors.
Also, many congrats to our colleagues on both sides of the border for their exciting  UT-WWU Collaboration Grant proposals!

Our proposal for a Millikelvin-Microwave-Photonic Probestation was selected for funding in the German Research Foundation's (DFG) Quantum Communication Development Environment (QCDE) call within the Major Instrumentation Initiative. Most credit goes to Prof. Hubert Krenner, who coordinated the proposal. We are looking forward to working with AGs Krenner, Bratschitsch and Wurstbauer on this exciting project!

Alex and Tobias report the integration of colloidal quantum dots with nanophotonic waveguides in ACS Photonics with contributions from the AG Bratschitsch and AG Pernice. They managed to both excite the quantum dots and collect single fluorescence photons via Ta₂O₅-on-insulator waveguides and report on how the approach can be scaled to larger system size. 

Emma, Martin, Francesco and co-workers report the integration of high-speed modulators and superconducting nanowire single photon detectors on the promising Lithium Niobate-on-Insulator platform. The article in Nature Communications was selected as a Editor's highlight in the "Optics and Photonics" section of the journal!

Thomas will be presenting his work on the "Integrated Low Loss MEMS Phase Shifter with Single-Photon Detection" at the Photonics and Switching in Computing 2021 OSA Topical Meeting within the Photonic Technologies for Computing, Switching, and Interconnects IV Session. Check out his talk on September 28th at 1 pm EDT! 

Alexander is presenting his work on the "Integration of colloidal quantum dots with nanophotonics circuits" at the Quantum Nanophotonic Materials, Devices, and Systems 2021 within the NanoScience + Engineering Applications Conference of SPIE.Optics+Photonics. Check out the recorded presentation and conference proceedings (subscription required)! 

Congratulations to Alexander for winning the Best Student Paper Award  at the OSA Advanced Photonics Congress (APC) for his presentation on "Colloidal quantum dots as single-photon sources for photonic integrated circuits". Check out his presentation in the 'Quantum and Nonlinear Optics I' session on Wednesday July 28th.

I am very honored to receive the annual Teaching Prize in the Physics Department for three of the classes I taught in the 2020-2021 winter and summer terms on "Quantum Computers and Quantum Simulators", "Quantum Communication and Quantum Sensing" within the Master studies, and "Atomic and Molecular Physics" within the Bachelor studies. For the latter I am very grateful to Prof. Michael Klasen, who taught the 'Quantum Physics' class of the joint module, and to Fabian Joswig & all tutors who significantly contributed to the positive overall course experience.
I further congratulate Prof. Cornelia Denz who was awarded a special prize in recognition of her longstanding and exceptional commitment to promoting gender equality, student outreach, and career & vocational guidance at the department and beyond.  

Lisa was selected by the National Centers of Competence in Research (NCCR) of the Swiss National Science Foundation for a SPIN Master's Fellowship in the INSPIRE Potentials program that aims to empower excellent female students in science! We will certainly miss having you around but are extremely happy for you getting the opportunity to work on single-spins in silicon finFET devices with some of the leading people in the field at IBM Research in Zurich. Congratulations! We are looking forward to hearing from you and wish you a all the best for your Swiss adventure!

On this year's OFC 2021, Matthias will present the work of the QuPAD consortium on "Multi-channel quantum communication receiver made from waveguide-integrated superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors" within the 'Quantum communication and photonic computing' session M3B on Monday June 7th at 11:30 (UTC-0700). Check out the recorded presentation or read the conference paper (subscription required)!

Check out Jan's talk in the Quantum Transduction session at CLEO 2021. Jan will present joint work with Philip on the Simulation, fabrication and control of nanophotonic circuits including diamond-based quantum emitters on Wednesday, May 12th at 16:45 (US Pacific Time).

The 9th NRW Nano Conference is about to kick off (21.-23- April 2021) with contributions from many local partners. Check out Martin's talk on "Scaling up Photonic Quantum Technologies: Waveguide-Integrated Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors on Monolithic Chips" in the Quantum Technology session (5A) on Friday starting at 10:40 with talks by Fedor Jelezko (Ulm) and Kristel Michielsen (Jülich). Alex, Helge and Fabian will present posters on the "Integration of nano-scale quantum emitters with nanophotonic circuits","Hybrid interfacing methods for integrated nanophotonic circuitry" and "On-chip Quantum Communication with Single-Photon Detectors". Also make sure to check out Pixel Photonics presenting the commercialization of Single-Photon Sensors at the CeNTech Exhibition Booth!

Congratulations to Martin, Fabian and all co-authors for showing that waveguide-integrated SNSPDs can have high system detection efficiency of up to 73% over an extremely broad bandwidth from visible (532 nm) to near-infrared (1640 nm) wavelengths. Their results are published in APL's special issue on "Non-classical Light Emitters and Single-Photon Detectors".  

Fabian, Helge and Martin's work on QKD at 2.5 GHz clock rate (2.5 MBit/s secrete key rate) is published in NPJ Quantum Information! The detectors (SNSPDs), delay lines and all photonic circuitry are completely integrated on a chip, with great potential for massively scaling up both the number of physical and wavelength channels. Congratulations!

Congratulations to Philip Schrinner for successfully defending his PhD-thesis on the "Integration of Single Photon Emitters with Photonic Integrated Circuits on Silicon Chips"! We owe a lot to your efforts for setting up the labs as the group's first PhD student, your scienific contributions and your positive attitude. Thank you and all the best for your future endeavors!

Check out the Roadmap on Integrated Quantum Photonics, which Galan Moody and Volker Sorger compiled, to which we contributed a section on "Integrated quantum and nonlinear photonics with Tantalum Pentoxide". The Roadmap features interesting articles from John Bowers, Marko Loncar, Kartik Srinivasan, Hong Tang, Val Zwiller, Eleni Diamanti and many others.

Thomas published his nice work on electrostatically-actuated opto-mechanical phase shifters in Optics Express! He achieved a record 13 π phase shift, insertion loss of only 0.5 dB and 31 dB extinction ratio in a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer configuration, which allowed sub-μs switching. With a half wave voltage of only V_π=2 V the half-wave voltage length product is as low as 0.042 Vcm! 

Visiting Professor Hiroaki Yoshioka secured significant funds for a collaborative project on self-organized topological organic microresonators from the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) within their Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) program. Congratulations Hiroaki, we are happy to continue working with you in Münster!
Also check out Hiroaki's latest paper on ink jet printing microdisk lasers for biosensing applications, which was featured on the OSA-homepage!
 

Today marks the kick.off of our collaborative research center CRC-1459, investigating "Intelligent matter: from responsive to adaptive nanosystems". We are excited to contribute with project C05 - "Coherent nanophotonic neural networks with adaptive molecular systems" in collaboration with Prof. Benjamin Risse from our Computer Science faculty!

Rasmus was selected for a scholarship from the Stiftung Industrieforschung. Congratulations!

Philip published his work on integrating nanodiamonds that host single-quantum emitters (Nitrogen Vacancy centers) with nanophotonic circuits in Nano Letters. The work is based on the photonic crystal cavity interfaces we devloped with the AG Reiter. Read more about Philip's studies on Optics & Photonics News, pro-physik.de, AAAS EurekAlert!, ScienceDaily, AZOnano, phys.org, and the WWU News!

Martin and our former Master students Simon and Lukas published their work on integrating Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detectors (SNSPDs) with Tantalum Pentoxide (Ta₂O₅) nanophotonic circuits in Scientific Reports today: check it out!

Check out the Quantum Dinner lecture series, organized by the AGyouLeap of the German Physical Society (DPG) with eleven exciting talks from leading groups in quantum science and technology. The lectures are held at 17:15 CET  between October 5th and 22nd.

Today marks the start of our SURQUID-project on SUper-Resolving Quantum Imaging and Detection. The project is a Research and Innovation Action (RIA) funded within the Future and Emerging Technolgies program (FET-OPEN) "Challenging Current Thinking" within the Horizon 2020 framework of the Eruopean Commission. We are thrilled to coordinate a diverse and competitive consortium with partners from KTH Stockholm, FSU Jena, Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF, IMEC, Swabian Instruments and IBEO Automotive.

Congratulations to Fabian for winning the Best Student Paper Award at QCrypt 2020 for his work on "Broadband Detector-Integrated On-Chip QKD Receiver for GHz Clock Rates"!

Matthias' work on integrating SNSPDs made from amorphous MoSi thin-films with Si₃N₄ nanophotonic circuits is published in APL Photonics! The project was done in collaboration with Mikhail Mikhailov at the B. Verkin Institute for Low Temperature Physics and Engineering (ILTPE, Ukraine). Congratulations to Matthias, Mikhail & Martin!

Our work on tantalum pentoxide-on-insulator as a new nanophotonics platform for integrated quantum technology is published in Optics Express.
Congratulations to Lukas, Martin & Thomas!

We are looking for two skilled and motivated individuals to join the Münster Nanofabrication Facility as staff members. Check out the job advertisements for process engineers with a nanoanalytics and a nanofabrication focus.

Martin will present our group's work at CLEO 2020 in San Jose (USA). We got papers on our tantalum pentoxide work (SM30.4) and the SNSPD-array (SM40.5, together with the QuPAD-Team) accepted, both of which Martin will present in the "Quantum Integrated Photonics I & II" sessions, respectively. 
Martin's conference trip to California will be supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), who selected him in a competitive process! Congratulations!

The NanoMicroMaterialsPhotonic.NRW state cluster (NMWP.NRW) features efforts in quantum technologies within the state of North Rhine Westphalia in their biannual magazine: check out the article about our work on pages 58-59 of the NMWP-Magazin 01.2020.

The year is off to a good start: Matvey's and Martin's work on phase-slip processes in YBCO nanowires was published in Nature Communications!

We observe energy level quantization in a high-temperature superconductor with finite critical current for the first time. Our nanowires reach quality factors in excess of 10 billion and excited state lifetimes of more than 20 ms, which are exciting prospects for future implementations of superconducting quantum computers that will need to execute very large numbers of gate operations.

We further observe that the absorption of single-photons in our YBCO-nanowires changes their quantum state, which we hope to exploit in future high-temperature superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs).

The results are featured on AAAS EurekAlert!, phys.org, pro-physik.de, the FZJ News, the WWU News and the July 03 issue of Superconductor Week!
 

Congrats to Martin and AG Schuck alumnus Jonas for being awarded their own funding for a Pilot Project on "Confocal microscope imaging of immune cells using superconducting single-photon detectors" within the Cells in Motion (CiM) interfaculty center!  The project will be conducted in collaboration with Linda Groeneweg from the AG Alonso Gonzalez at the Insitute for Immunology.

This year work from the AG Schuck will be presented at all three DPG Spring Meetings! We have a total of 11 contributions.

At the DPG Spring Meeting of the Atomic, Molecular, Plasma Physics and Quantum Optics Section (SAMOP) in Hannover, March 08.-13., Martin (Q27.1, Q43.7), Matthias (Q27.3), Marco (Q43.8) , Philip (Q46.5) and Jan (Q46.6, together with AG Reiter) will have oral contributions and Martin (Q13.31), Alexander (Q54.30) and Roland (Q54.31) will present posters.

At the DPG Spring Meeting of the Condensed Matter Section (SKM) in Dresden, March 15.-20., Carsten (HL26.1) has an invited talk in the Focus Session on Integrated Quantum Photonics.

And at the 84. Annual Meeting of DPG and DPG Spring Meeting of the Matter and Cosmos Section (SMuK) in Bonn, March 30. - April 3., AG Schuck alumnus and current MiReQu project partner Paul (AG Heusler) has an oral contribution (DD5.3).
 

In collaboration with the AG Heusler, the AG Pernice, Prof. Reinhard Schulz-Schaeffer and Jonas Lauströer at the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg (HAW, Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Hamburg) we will investigate Mixed Reality Learning Environments to promote professional competence development in quantum technologies (MiReQu - Mixed Reality Lernumgebungen zur Förderung fachlicher Kompetenzentwicklung in den Quantentechnologien). The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) through the end of 2022.

Martin's micrograph of a waveguide integrated superconducting nanowire single photon detector device was selected for one of the Raith micrograph awards. Congratulations Martin!

Martin and Matthias are presenting our work on waveguide-integrated MoSi-SNSPDs and the QuPAD-project at the Single-Photon Workshop 2019 in Milano. Check out their posters in case you are around!
 

Our joint publication with the group of Wolfram Pernice on efficient and broadband optical fiber-chip interfaces produced in 3D direct laser writing is now published in Optics Letters. Check it out!
 

Our joint publication with the group of Doris Reiter, featuring Philip's work on photonic crystal cavities for integrating quantum emitters into nanophotonic networks, is now published in Advanced Quantum Technologies. Check it out!

The results are also featured on OSA's Optics and Photonics News,  Phys.org, Science Daily, Science Bulletin, pro-physik.de and the WWU News.

We further made it into the Highlights of 2019 on Pro-Physik!
 

In times where a growing number of people, including political leadership, question the scientific method, the EU Commission plans to withdraw explicit representation of "Research" and "Education" from their Portfolio. If you want to join in supporting large parts of Europe's scientific community asking the Presidents of the European Parliament and the European Commission to reconsider their plans, please sign this petition.

Today our  partners from Entropy installed a new closed-cycle He-cryostat in our labs at the Center for SoftNanoscience (SoN). The system will be used for developing waveguide-integrated Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detectors for the QuPAD-project (QuPAD).

Our project on ultrafast quantum key distribution on parallel detection channels (QuPAD), for which we collaborate with PicoQuant (Berlin) and Entropy (Munich), funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), is in the news: Check it out!

We welcome Prof. Dr. Hiroaki Yoshioka from the Graduate School of Information Science and Electrical Engineering (ISEE) at Kyushu University, Japan! Prof. Yoshioka is supported by the program "Progress 100, Global Leadership Training for Young Researchers" and will work with us on integrating Lasers on nanophotonic chips. Welcome Professor Yoshioka! 

Carsten, Jan, Philip, Lukas, Matthias and Martin are presenting our work at the DPG Spring Meeting in Rostock. Check out our contributions Q 13.1 (Mon), Q 24.4 (Tue), Q 38.6 (Wed), Q 57.40 (Thu), Q 57.43 (Thu) and Q 58.32 (Thu)!

Bashar Alabdo from the Geschwister-Scholl-Gymnasium in Münster spent two weeks with us as part of his work placement (Betriebspraktikum). We were happy to have you!

The 683. WE-Heraeus Seminar on "Physics and Applications of Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors" in Bad Honnef concluded with more than 50 exciting oral and poster contributions from leading experts in the field. Congratulations to Simone Frasca (EPFL & JPL), Steffen Doerner (KIT) and Daniela Salvoni (Naples) for winning the poster prizes. A short report about the seminar can be found here (in German).

Simone's review on waveguide-integrated superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPD) was published in Nanophotonics. Check out the open access article for all you ever wanted to know about SNSPD integrated with nanophotonic devices.

Alexander Eich joins the group as PhD-student. Welcome Alexander!

Matthias Häußler joins the group as PhD-student. Welcome Matthias!

Our group is expanding into brand new office and laboratory spaces in the recently opened Center for Soft Nanoscience (SoN). 

Our new UHV Magnetron Sputter System arrived safely in Münster. It will become part of the Münster Nanofabrication Facility MNF. Happy sputtering!

We are happy to announce the 683rd WE-Heraeus-Seminar on the "Physics and Applications of Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors", which we are co-organizing with Tim Bartley (Paderborn), Aleksandr Korneev (Moscow) and Döndü Sahin (Bristol). The 5-day workshop will take place from November 12.-16. 2018 at the Physikzentrum in Bad Honnef (Germany) and is generously supported by the Wilhelm & Else Heraeus Foundation. We will have a very exciting program and invite postdocs and Phd-students to submit abstracts until June 30th!

Philip, Jan, Martin & Matthias are presenting our work at the DPG Spring Meeting in Erlangen. Check out their contributions Q 40.17, Q 40.19, Q 51.69 and Q 64.8!

Martin Wolff joins the group as PhD-student. Welcome Martin!

Jun.-Prof. N. Guggenberger of Münster's Institute for Information, Telecommunication and Media Law (ITM) and the RWTÜV-Stiftung invite for an event discussing opportunities, legislation and regulation of Blockchain technology on November 7th at Erbdrostenhof Münster. We will also be discussing how quantum technology could affect Blockchain implementations: register here!
Read a news article about how the event went: here!
 

Visit us at the "Highlights der Physik" science fair from September 19.-23. on Münster's Schlossplatz!
In collaboration with The Institute of Photonic Sciences - ICFO (Barcelona, Spain) and qutools GmbH (Munich, Germany) we are presenting an interactive experiment where you can test the predictions of quantum physics yourself!