research areas

At present, optical technologies form an indispensable basis for addressing pressing tasks in the areas of health, environment, energy, information and security. This requires complete control of light in all its properties - firstly this control makes it possible to initiate processes with light and secondly to control and use light as an instrument, tool or information carrier. Ultra optic takes on this challenge as a synergistic combination of two sub-disciplines of modern optics, nano optics and laser physics: The objective of this research territory is to thoroughly control light with extreme properties - in terms of wavelength, pulse duration and power - from production to application.
Founded in 2005 by the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, the centre ultra optics makes use of three complementary approaches:

Use of nanostructures in modern optics,
Controlling material properties of light-matter interaction and
Exploration of new sources of light with extreme properties

The centre's approach includes the combination of these approaches into one, whereby, for example, nanostructures control nonlinear processes in which light through structured interaction with structured matter modifies its surroundings, and thereby determines its conditions of existence itself. The synergy of optics and laser physics opens up fundamentally new possibilities for the generation and spatiotemporal control of light.

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