After the first half of the first funding period, the PhD program "Atoms, Light and Molecules" (DK-ALM) can draw a very positive interim balance. Following an international call for proposals, all 26 positions are filled with promising young researchers - including six women. A total of 35 scientific publications have already been published with the participation of doctoral students, including numerous papers in leading scientific journals. Hendrik Poulsen Nautrup from Hans Briegel's working group was in involved in two papers in Nature Communications and PNAS. The researchers have proposed a new data bus for a future quantum computer and have also developed an adaptive program that uses artificial intelligence to independently develop new quantum experiments. Isabella Fritsche from Rudolf Grimm's group was participating in the observation of quasi-particles, on which they reported in the journal Science in 2016. Malcolm Simpson from Roland Wester's team was engaged in a joint work of several DK-ALM working groups in which the researchers covered fullerenes with a solid helium layer and measured them spectroscopically for the first time. They reported on it in Nature Communications. David Sauerwein and Martin Hebenstreit from Barbara Kraus' group were involved in several theoretical works on quantum information processing.
First students are about to graduate
The Doctoral Programme offers an ideal environment for the training of students. In addition to special courses for doctoral students, with in-house lecturers and international experts, regular Science Days are offered. Last summer, the first summer school took place on Lake Achensee. The next summer school with a number of international speakers will be held this year at the University Centre Obergurgl in the Ötztal. "The first doctoral students are expected to complete their dissertation next year," says Roland Wester, spokesman of the doctoral college. "Then we'll add new students to our program again." The programme is financed by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, the Province of Tyrol and the University of Innsbruck.