Dr Ioachim Pupeza is moving from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching to the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology, where he will head the new research group “Field-Resolved Optical Precision Metrology“ starting in February 2023. He is an expert in electric-field-resolving spectroscopic methods. At the IPHT, the physicist intends to further improve the technology and open up new applications, such as label-free cell detection and sorting at high speeds.

Prof Jürgen Popp, scientific director of Leibniz IPHT, is very pleased about the reinforcement in the area of optical health technologies: “We warmly welcome Dr Pupeza. The establishment of his new working group is a strategic measure aimed at significantly expanding the range of optical methods in medicine.” Especially in the field of infection research, field-resolved spectroscopy can make an important contribution in diagnostics and monitoring.

In his ERC Consolidator Grant funded project “Laser-Based Infrared Vibrational Electric-Field Fingerprinting” (LIVE), Pupeza is working toward developing novel light sources and innovative approaches to recording optical electric fields. The goal is to use the control over light at the level of single optical field oscillations afforded by femtosecond lasers and nonlinear optics to overcome current technological limitations, and thereby tap the full potential of vibrational spectroscopic fingerprinting in terms of sensitivity, specificity, and throughput.

The project is funded by the European Research Council over five years with a sum of around two million euros. In addition, the close collaboration within the cluster of excellence “Balance of the Microverse” and the University Hospital Jena offers great opportunities in clinically relevant proof-of-concept experiments. Further collaborations are in preparation with Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, University of Vienna and Friedrich Schiller University Jena.