Julian Schmitt Appointed Professor at the Kirchhoff-Institute for Physics in Heidelberg
Julian Schmitt (formerly at IAP Bonn) joined the Kirchhoff-Institute for Physics as of January 1st, 2025 and the team members and labs will join the new laboratories in the next months of 2025. At Heidelberg, his experimental research group “Optical Quantum Systems” (optiQS) will explore emergent phenomena in quantum fluids of light, topological photonics and physical computation using open light-matter systems.
(c) Volker Lannert / Uni Bonn
In A Tale of Three Papers, Julian reflects on three noteworthy scientific papers published in Science by the group of Martin Weitz at the University of Bonn within the last four years. Julian, back then group leader of the ERC junior research group “Quantum Fluids of Light” and last author of the third paper in this series, offers us insights into the ongoing evolution of research in the complex domain of quantum optics and photon Bose-Einstein condensates.
This interview is a contribution to ML4Q Stories, a blog where researchers from the ML4Q cluster share their experiences, challenges, and perspectives on being a physicist—exploring their motivations, scientific debates, and the future of quantum science.
(c) Alexander Jahn, Universität zu Köln
In November 2023, the cluster awarded six early-career researchers the ML4Q Young Investigators Award, recognizing their noteworthy contributions to ML4Q. This acknowledgment specifically commends their accomplishments that require collaborative efforts across various sites.
Julian Schmitt, together with Gláucia Murta, formerly in Düsseldorf and now located in Vienna, were among the distinguished recipients. Their collaborative focus lies in multipartite quantum networks. Curious about the recent developments in their collaborative journey and the impact of the ML4Q Young Investigators Award, we reached out to Gláucia and Julian for their perspectives. Link to the interview
Julian was also guest on the Cluster’s podcast ML4Q&A. In the episode, Chris and Julian talk about Bose-Einstein condensates and the differences between the atomic and the photonic sort. They recap how Julian got into the atomic molecular and optical physics (AMO) research community where major breakthroughs often seem to be possible already with relatively small teams. They also chat about how optical quantum gases can shed new light on exciting open questions in physics, such as grand canonical condensates or the interplay between quantum physics and thermodynamics. Listen here to the full podcast episode
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