Helmholtz Prize for the discoverer of the "mini optical comb"
An optical comb which allows high frequencies to be transmitted into low frequencies and, at the same time, to be measured with extreme accuracy is not only a physical masterpiece, but also a prize collector: after it had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics (awarded to Theodor Hänsch and John L. Hall in 2005), the Helmholtz Prize, the most important European metrology prize, will now be awarded for an alternative procedure for an optical comb. For the development of an optical comb on a chip - which is, moreover, based on a completely different physical principle than its predecessor - Dr. Tobias J. Kippenberg and his colleagues Dr. Ronald Holzwarth and Pascal Del Haye from the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching will now be awarded the Helmholtz Prize 2009. Tobias Kippenberg is now professor at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Lausanne (EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne). The prize which is endowed with 20 000 euros will be awarded on June 23 in a ceremony following the public Hermann von Helmholtz symposium at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences (Gendarmenmarkt, Berlin). more...