Prize for research in laser technology

Prof. Dr Jens Limpert and PD Dr Jan Rothhardt have been awarded the EPS-QEOD Prize for Research in Laser Technology and its Applications 2024. The award ceremony took place on 27 August during the 11th Europhoton conference in Vilnius (Lithuania). The two physicists from Jena were honoured "for the development of compact coherent high-power extreme ultraviolet (EUV) sources and material-specific nanoscale extreme ultraviolet imaging". The award is presented every two years by the Quantum Electronics and Optics Division (QEOD) of the European Physical Society (EPS). The EPS-QEOD award is one of the highest honours in laser science and recognizes researchers who have made a significant contribution to science through innovative research and technological breakthroughs.

In close collaboration, Limpert and Rothhardt have developed new insights and technologies for the realization of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) sources with synchrotron-like performance. By using high-power femtosecond fibre laser systems and the concept of coherently combining several fibre amplifiers, they have developed highly harmonic sources with high conversion efficiency whose photon flux exceeds the state of the art by several orders of magnitude.

High-resolution lensless microscope

Their work leads to a groundbreaking new technology: a high-resolution, lensless EUV microscope that utilizes the so-called ptychography method, which enables an unprecedented resolution of 16 nanometres and provides quantitative amplitude and phase information in every image pixel. This opens up untapped potential in nanoscience and materials science, such as in the development of efficient nanoelectronics, for energy and data storage devices and in biological imaging, with applications ranging from the detection of cancer cells to the study of the interaction of pathogens, drugs or nanoparticles with biological cells.

All of this was made possible above all by close inter-institutional collaboration: Prof. Limpert is a member of the Scientific Directorate of the Fraunhofer Institute of Applied Optics and Precision Engineering (IOF) and a professor at the Institute of Applied Physics at Friedrich Schiller University Jena – PD Dr Rothhardt works as a research group leader at the Helmholtz Institute Jena, a branch of the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt. Both combined their expertise in laser technology and imaging techniques to develop this innovative technology.