Learning Research - An "intensive week" on laser cooling

In order to enable students to look from the lecture hall into a real research environment and thus into the latest research, an intensive week on laser cooling took place at the Department of Physics at TU Kaiserslautern in October. Ten students from six nations took part at the TU to study research on this state-of-the-art research topic. Through a combination of lectures and independent laboratory work, the basics and applications of laser cooling were taught.

This technology is a central building block in the investigation of quantum phenomena in the laboratory: at very low temperatures, all effects that destroy quantum properties are frozen out until, finally, only the quantum character of the atom dominates the physics at a few millionth fractions of a degree centigrade above the absolute temperature zero point. The quantum systems investigated in this temperature range can be measured very precisely in their properties and dynamics. This makes it possible to study many very basic processes of quantum physics.

Under the concept of "Learning Research", lectures were held in the morning to provide the basic knowledge, and in the afternoon this knowledge was applied to real research in the labs of the participating groups. From the students' point of view, the compact program of the intensive week was a great success that motivates to adopt the concept for the future. For example, it is to be implemented as a new form of teaching in the international master's program "Advanced Quantum Physics". This event was supported by the newly established collaborative research center "OSCAR - Open Systems Control with Atomic and Photonic Matter" (SFB/TRR 185). The concept is based on events organized by the Graduate School of Excellence BCGS of the University of Bonn, which is the second pillar of the SFB/TRR 185 OSCAR. The current event also included the Graduate School of Excellence "Materials Science in Mainz (MAINZ)", the State Research Center OPTIMAS and the TeachingPlus project "Learning Research".