News
05/2022, Jena, GER
Dr. Mario Chemnitz granted by the Carl Zeiss Foundation to start new research group
From August 1, 2022, the Leibniz Institute for Photonic Technologies (Leibniz-IPHT) will complement its research portfolio with its new "Smart Photonics" research group. The physicist, Dr. Mario Chemnitz, is establishing his own group at the Jena-based institute over the next five years with CZS Nexus funding from the Carl Zeiss Foundation to research smart processors for modern diagnostics.
As head of the new "Smart Photonics" research group, Dr. Mario Chemnitz and his team will work on the diagnostics of the future at the interface of biology, physics and data science. The €1.5 million grant from the Carl Zeiss Foundation will enable him to build a multidisciplinary team and a state-of-the-art laboratory to develop a fully fiber-integrated smart sensor and microscopy system. At the heart of this system are fiber-integrated, neuromorphic processors that take on individual tasks from the field of artificial intelligence (AI) to autonomously recognize patterns in large amounts of data, for example on images or in signals, at lightning speed. In perspective, fiber-optic processors significantly accelerate spectroscopy and offer the potential to detect objects microscopically in a cameraless manner and to measure cells autonomously.
"I am honored to be supported by the Carl Zeiss Foundation in the CZS Nexus program. This support, but also the trust placed in me by Leibniz-IPHT to be allowed to establish and lead my own group, is a great pleasure and recognition. It shows how much potential there is in the vision of a new generation of diagnostic tools based on light-driven neural processors. I look forward to working with an interdisciplinary team at Leibniz-IPHT to conduct research on this topic in the coming years," said Dr. Mario Chemnitz.
About the CZS Nexus funding program of the Carl Zeiss Foundation
The CZS Nexus funding program of the Carl Zeiss Foundation supports postdocs on their scientific career path. The funding of 1.5 million euros enables young scientists who want to implement interdisciplinary research ideas between the disciplines of mathematics, computer science, natural science and technology to set up their own research group over five to six years."It is precisely the interdisciplinary interfaces that offer enormous potential for scientific innovation, but they don't get much of a chance in conventional funding programs," says Dr. Felix Streiter, Managing Director of the Carl Zeiss Foundation. "The Nexus program therefore consistently focuses on the connection between different disciplines."In 2022, five scientists received funding from the Carl Zeiss Foundation.
About the Carl Zeiss Foundation
The Carl Zeiss Foundation aims to create scope for scientific breakthroughs. As a partner of excellent science, it supports both basic research and application-oriented research and teaching in the MINT disciplines (mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology). Founded in 1889 by the physicist and mathematician Ernst Abbe, the Carl Zeiss Foundation is one of the oldest and largest private science-funding foundations in Germany. It is the sole owner of Carl Zeiss AG and SCHOTT AG. Its projects are financed from the dividend distributions of the two foundation companies.
08/2021, Montreal, CA
Newest paper on a smart on-chip pulse shaper to be published in Optica
Our lattest work on "Autonomous On-chip Interferometry for Reconfigurable Optical Waveform Generation" has been accepted for publication in the upcoming issue of OSA's highest impact journal Optica. In the work by Dr. Chemnitz and his students, the authors report on an all-optical, adaptive, on-chip system for shaping optical waveforms to a user-defined target by uniquely utilizing an uncommon evolutionary optimization algorithm. The paper will be available soon here.
04/2021, Montreal, CA
Dr. Mario Chemnitz receives FRQNT PBEEE fellowship to continue research at INRS-EMT
Quebec has granted Dr. Chemnitz as TOP 1 candidate with one of their prescious postdoctoral fellowships to continue his studies on machine learning in photonics at INRS-EMT Montreal/Varennes. The fellowship will ensure front-leading research and a safe, continous career experience for Dr. Chemnitz who is currently residing in Montreal with his young family. Many thanks.
04/2020, Jena, GER
Dr. Chemnitz receives Beutenberg Award in Life Science and Physics
The Beutenberg Campus Society Jena has distinguished Dr. Chemnitz for his cross-discipline research efforts during his doctoral studies at the interface of material sciences, nonlinear optics and optofluidics. His thesis "Soliton Dynamics in Liquid-Core Optical Fibers" has convinced the academic jury to have made a significant interdisciplinary contribution to the fields of life science and physics. For that, he received the Science Award of the Beutenberg Campus Society, who judged from 8 outstanding research works from multiple institutions including Leibniz and Max-Planck. (Photo shows Dr. Chemnitz and Prof. Nolte at another award ceremony 2019. Photo credits to Jan Nathanael.)
04/2019, Montreal, CA
Dr. Mario Chemnitz honoured with prestigious Banting fellowship
The National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada has granted Dr. Chemnitz the highest scientific distinction for an early-career researcher in Canada. He received 1 of 23 postdoctoral fellowships of the Banting foundation to pursue research at the interface of machine learning, nonlinear optics, and quantum photonics. The Banting fellowships are given out annually to outstanding postdoctoral researchers from all nature sciences and engineering across Canada in 2019 and are hence highly competitive to receive. Dr. Chemnitz and his family are enormously grateful for this honour.