Professor Jelena Vuckovic has been named MPQ Distinguished Scholar, 2019. She leads the Stanford's Nanoscale and Quantum Photonics Lab and is Director of Q-FARM (Quantum Fundamentals, Architecture and Machines), a facility of the Stanford-SLAC Quantum Initiative. Jelena is currently a visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics.

The MPQ award recognizes her groundbreaking contributions to the field of Nanoscale and Quantum Photonics. Jelena is the 7th scientist awarded this honor since the Institute was funded. Previous Distinguished Scholars 

Please join us in congratulating Jelena on her tremendous research contributions!

About the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics

Research concentrates on the interaction of light and matter under extreme conditions. One focus is the high-precision spectroscopy of hydrogen. In the course of these measurements Prof. Theodor W. Hänsch developed the frequency comb technique for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2005. Other experiments aim at capturing single atoms and photons and letting them interact in a controlled way, thus paving the way towards future quantum computers. Theorists on the other hand are working on strategies to communicate quantum information in a most efficient way. They develop algorithms that allow the safe encryption of secret information. MPQ scientists also investigate the bizarre properties quantum-mechanical many-body systems can take on at extremely low temperatures (about one millionth Kelvin above zero). Finally light flashes with the incredibly short duration of several attoseconds (1 as is a billionth of a billionth of a second) are generated which make it possible, for example, to observe quantum-mechanical processes in atoms such as the 'tunnelling' of electrons or atomic transitions in real time.

Excerpted from "Jelena Vučković named MPQ Distinguished Scholar", Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, March 28, 2019.