Welcome to the Sandoghdar Division
at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light

Welcome to the Nano-Optics Division:

Control of light-matter interaction has undergone a revolution in the past two decades. Although the theoretical understanding of the interaction between light and atoms became fairly mature already in the middle of the twentieth century, experimental progress has continued to change our way of thinking about many of the central phenomena. Ground-breaking laboratory steps toward the control of light-matter interaction beyond simple spectroscopy were taken in the 1980s when single ions were detected in a trap and atoms were cooled and manipulated by laser light. Another important development of optical sciences in the 1980s and 90s was the detection of single molecules in the solid state with two separate approaches via optical microscopy and high-resolution laser spectroscopy. This line of work has had a tremendous impact in several areas of natural sciences, ranging from fluorescent microscopy in biology to semiconductor quantum dot spectroscopy and single photon generation and quantum optics.

The research of our group aims to advance experimental and theoretical mastery of light-matter interaction at the nanometer scale and to achieve the same degree of control and finesse that is known from the gas-phase quantum optics in the condensed phase. To do this, we combine concepts from quantum optics, laser spectroscopy, cryogenics, optical imaging, scanning probe technology and nanofluidics. In this endeavour, we have addressed a wide spectrum of scientific questions, ranging from quantum optics to biophysics. For more information, please consult our research website and our list of publications.