The Max Planck School of Photonics is a highly selective international graduate school that accepts only about 20 students per year. To apply, you must be finishing your bachelor studies with excellent results. The School offers top-level courses and PhD projects in world-leading research groups across 7 locations in Germany, but also very attractive financial support: about 1500 EUR/month during the initial two-year graduate course stage, and about 2200 EUR/month during the PhD project phase (after taxes and insurance). Applications by students with a master degree for direct entry into the PhD research phase are also possible.

During the two-year course, Campus Erlangen will offer a fully up-to-date curriculum that starts with the foundations in physics and reaches all the way to state-of-the-art applications.

Learn about exciting topics such as Bell's inequalities, photonic crystals, optical communications, quantum computation and many others!

Erlangen is a university town with a population of around 100,000. It is located in northern Bavaria, close to the city of Nuremberg. Its Friedrich-Alexander University (FAU) is Bavaria's second-largest, with some 40,000 students.

Erlangen has a long tradition in optics research and teaching. It is home to the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light and the Master Programme in Advanced Optical Technologies (MAOT).

Visit (or live in) nearby historical cities like Nuremberg or Bamberg, with a vibrant cultural and arts scene.

Enjoy hiking in the hills and rocky outcrops of 'Franconian Switzerland', half an hour away, which is a famous rock-climbing destination. Travel south to the Alps at the weekend.

Gerd Leuchs

Quantum Optics, Continuous Variable Quantum Communication, Structured Light

Florian Marquardt

Theoretical Quantum Optics, Optomechanics, Quantum Many-Body Theory, Machine Learning for Physics

Philip Russell

Photonic Crystal Fibres, Nonlinear Optics, Optical Sensing, New Light Sources

Bernhard Schmauss

Optical Communication Technologies, Signal Processing

Maria Chekhova

Nonlinear Quantum Optics, Entangled Light Beams

Peter Hommelhoff

Ultrafast phenomena, Short Pulses, Electron Acceleration by Light

Christoph Marquardt

Quantum Technologies, Quantum Key Distribution, Photonic Links to Satellites

Nicolas Joly

Photonic Crystal Fibres, Nonlinear Optics

Norbert Lindlein

Classical Optics, Optical Sensing, Shaping of Light Fields

In addition to the Max Planck School Fellows listed above, lecturers from the physics and engineering departments and from the Master Programme in Advanced Optical Technologies (MAOT) will be responsible for your graduate courses. See the list of lecturers in MAOT and the department by following the links above.

You have a bachelor’s degree in physics or engineering and apply successfully to the highly selective Max Planck School of Photonics graduate program.

This means you will enjoy two years of initial graduate studies at any of the three designated 'curriculum universities' of MPSP: Erlangen, Jena, or Karlsruhe. Afterwards you will have your choice of research group from among the world-leading teams situated at the 7 locations of the School: Hamburg, Göttingen, Aachen, Munich, Karlsruhe, Jena, and Erlangen. Within another three years, you will complete your PhD at the selected research group.

Note: Don't forget to indicate 'Erlangen' as your preferred campus!