LMU researcher Immanuel Bloch receives High-Tech Prize

LMU physicist Immanuel Bloch has received the High-Tech Prize awarded by the Bavarian Minister-President. Honoring scientific milestones in the key technologies of the future, the 300,000 euro prize is the most lucrative technology award in Germany according to the official announcement. “I’m delighted to receive this prestigious new award by the Bavarian Minister-President and the Bavarian government,” says Immanuel Bloch. “The prize is also a recognition of the many people with whom I’ve had the privilege to work here in Munich over the past 17 years and with whom I was able to shape the “quantum future.” I owe them all my sincere and heartfelt thanks!” The prize money will be reinvested in research, teaching, applications, and supporting new talent.

In his tribute, State Minister Markus Blume, who was standing in for the Minister-President, had warm words for the Munich quantum physicist: “Professor Bloch is a world-leading researcher and new pioneer of quantum science.”

Immanuel Bloch does cutting-edge work in a new, interdisciplinary research field at the interface of quantum optics, quantum information processing, and solid-state physics – the study of quantum many-body systems. Bloch obtained his doctorate at LMU Munich under Nobel laureate Theodor Hänsch. Since 2009, he has been a director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching and Chair Professor of Experimental Physics and Quantum Optics at LMU. In 2005, he became the youngest ever winner of the German Research Foundation’s Leibniz Prize.