On the 24th of September 2008 Markus Aspelmeyer, Senior Scientist at the IQQI Vienna received the prestigious Fritz-Kohlrausch Prize of the Austrian Physical Society (ÖPG) for his experimental work on quantum optics with Micro and Nano Mechanical Systems, especially realising self-cooling of a micro mirror by radiation pressure. Read Article in Nature.
His works are part of a world wide new scientific direction, its goal being to advance into the quantum regime of macroscopic mechanical systems thereby “leading mechanics back into quantum mechanics”. The experiments with laser cooling promise more revolutionary results in the near future, for example Quantum Entanglement between a field of light and a mechanical structure as well as novel mechanical Quantum Sensors.

Markus Aspelmeyer is already a several times awarded up–and-coming young scientist on the IQOQI Vienna. He is co-ordinator of the EU – Project MINOS (“Micro- and Nano-optomechanical Systems”).

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