Immanuel Bloch (born 16 November 1972,

Fulda Fulda () (historically in English called Fuld) is a town in Hesse, Germany; it is located on the river Fulda and is the administrative seat of the Fulda district (''Kreis''). In 1990, the town hosted the 30th Hessentag state festival. Histor ...

) is a German

experimental physicist Experimental physics is the category of disciplines and sub-disciplines in the field of physics that are concerned with the observation of physical phenomena and experiments. Methods vary from discipline to discipline, from simple experiments and o ...

. His research is focused on the investigation of quantum many-body systems using ultracold atomic and molecular quantum gases. Bloch is known for his work on atoms in artificial crystals of light,

optical lattice An optical lattice is formed by the interference of counter-propagating laser beams, creating a spatially periodic polarization pattern. The resulting periodic potential may trap neutral atoms via the Stark shift. Atoms are cooled and congreg ...

s, especially the first realization of a quantum phase transition from a weakly interacting

superfluid Superfluidity is the characteristic property of a fluid with zero viscosity which therefore flows without any loss of kinetic energy. When stirred, a superfluid forms vortices that continue to rotate indefinitely. Superfluidity occurs in two ...

to a strongly interacting Mott insulating state of matter.

Career

Bloch studied physics at the University of Bonn in 1995, followed by a one-year research visit to Stanford University. He obtained his PhD in 2000 working under

Theodor W. Hänsch Theodor Wolfgang Hänsch (; born 30 October 1941) is a German physicist. He received one-third of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics for "contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb t ...

at the Ludwig-Maximilian's University in Munich. The thesis title was ''Atomlaser und Phasenkohärenz atomarer Bose-Einstein-Kondensate''. As a junior group leader, he continued in Munich and started his work on ultracold quantum gases in optical lattices. In 2003, he moved to a full professor position in experimental physics at the

University of Mainz The Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (german: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) is a public research university in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate, Germany, named after the printer Johannes Gutenberg since 1946. With approximately 32,000 stu ...

, where he stayed until 2009. In 2008 he was appointed scientific director of the newly founded division on ''Quantum Many-Body Systems'' at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching. Since 2012 he has been vice-dean at the department of physics of

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: link=no, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of ...

and managing director of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics since 2012.

Research

Bloch's work focuses on the investigation of quantum many-body system using ultracold atoms stored in

potentials. Among other things, he is known for the realization of a quantum phase transition from a

to a Mott insulator, in which ultracold atoms were brought into the regime of strong correlations for the first time, thereby allowing one to mimic the behaviour

strongly correlated material Strongly correlated materials are a wide class of compounds that include insulators and electronic materials, and show unusual (often technologically useful) electronic and magnetic properties, such as metal-insulator transitions, heavy fermi ...

s. The experimental ideas were based on a theoretical proposal by

Peter Zoller Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a ...

and Ignacio Cirac. His other works includes the observation of a Tonks–Girardeau gas of strongly interacting bosons in one dimensions, the detection of collapses and revivals of the wavefunction of a

Bose–Einstein condensate In condensed matter physics, a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter that is typically formed when a gas of bosons at very low densities is cooled to temperatures very close to absolute zero (−273.15 °C or −459.67&n ...

because of interactions, and the use of quantum noise correlations to observe Hanbury-Brown and Twiss bunching and antibunching for bosonic and fermionic atoms (simultaneously with the group of Alain Aspect). More recently, his research team was able to realize single-atom resolved imaging and addressing of ultracold atoms held in an optical lattice. Much of hiss related work was carried out in the group of

Markus Greiner Markus Greiner is a German physicist and Professor of Physics at Harvard University. Greiner studied under the Nobel Laureate Theodor Hänsch at the Ludwig-Maximilians University and at the Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics, where he rece ...

Awards

In 2005 he was presented with the International Commission of Optics Prize. In 2011, he received the EPS Prize for Fundamental Aspects of Quantum Electronics and Optics of the

European Physical Society The European Physical Society (EPS) is a non-profit organisation whose purpose is to promote physics and physicists in Europe through methods such as physics outreach. Formally established in 1968, its membership includes the national physical so ...

. In 2013, Bloch was awarded the

Körber European Science Prize The Körber European Science Prize is presented annually by the Körber Foundation in Hamburg honoring outstanding scientists working in Europe for their promising research projects. The prize is endowed with one million euro (until 2018: 750,000 e ...

and the International Senior BEC Award. For the year 2015 he received the Harvey Prize from Israel's Technion Institute.Harvey Prize Laureates
/ref> He is a member of the

German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (german: link=no, Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saal ...

and an external member of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

References

External links

CV

Immanuel Bloch at LMU and MPQ

Group Homepage

Max-Planck Institute of Quantum Optics

Fakultät für Physik, LMU Munich
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bloch, Immanuel Quantum physicists 21st-century German physicists Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize winners 1972 births Living people People from Fulda University of Bonn alumni Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Max Planck Institute directors Fellows of the American Physical Society