PhoenixD receives millions in funding and enters the second funding period

05/22/2025

[Translate to English:] — Several members of PhoenixD attended the press conference announcing the approval live at the Marstall with University President Volker Epping (far left).

With the favourable decision of the expert panel and Excellence Commission for the Excellence Strategy, the PhoenixD Cluster of Excellence is entering its second funding period. The researchers are developing optical precision instruments rapidly and cost-effectively to enable cutting-edge use in medical diagnostics, food production, telecommunication, and quantum communication. To realise this goal, researchers from the six fields of mechanical engineering, physics, electrical engineering, computer science, mathematics and chemistry work together to investigate the manipulation and detection of laser light.

In recent years, Hannover has seen the emergence of an optics and photonics research ecosystem, which will form its optics campus in Marienwerder with the Laser Zentrum Hannover e. V. and the OPTICUM research building, the latter of which is currently under construction.

“Over the past seven years, the roughly 150 researchers who make up PhoenixD have published many innovative research findings which wouldn’t have been possible without the interdisciplinary cooperation under the umbrella of the cluster. The seal of excellence granted through funding approval is due to our young scientists doing outstanding research. The fact that we are the only photonics cluster selected in Germany underscores our special positioning concerning this future technology,” said PhoenixD spokesperson Prof. Dr. Uwe Morgner of LUH. “The funding approval is a great acknowledgement of our developmental work. Over the coming seven years, we will expand the competence network and appoint additional top-notch international researchers in Lower Saxony.”

In addition to Leibniz University Hannover, the participants in the research collaboration are TU Braunschweig, the Laser Zentrum Hannover e. V., the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) and the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt.

Read the official press release from Leibniz University Hannover here.

Note for editors:

For further information and interview requests, please contact PhoenixD spokesperson Prof. Dr. Uwe Morgner (phone: +49 (0)511 762 2452/ 2589 or +49 (0)511 762 14770, email: morgner@iqo.uni-hannover.de) or Mechtild Freiin v. Münchhausen, spokesperson for Leibniz University Hannover and head of Communications and Marketing (tel. 0511 762-5342, email: kommunikation@uni-hannover.de).

For press photos of PhoenixD, please contact Sonja Smalian (phone: +49 151/518 074 68, email: sonja.smalian@phoenixd.uni-hannover.de).

Published by Sonja Smalian

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