On 1 August 2023, Rudolf Gross becomes Scientific Director of the Munich Quantum Valley (MQV) and Managing Director of the Munich Quantum Valley e.V. association. He takes over the tasks from Rainer Blatt, who hands over the baton to him after about two years. Rudolf Gross has been closely associated with MQV from the very beginning: Together with Immanuel Bloch, Ignacio Cirac, Klaus Blaum and Raoul Klingner, he authored the strategy paper that led to the foundation of MQV. Since 2021, he is member of MQV and coordinates the Quantum Technology Park & Entrepreneurship (QTPE) consortium. He is also PI within the two MQV lighthouse projects NeQuS and IQ-Sense.
In an international collaboration, WMI researchers succeeded in the levitation of a superconducting lead-tin sphere with 100 μm diameter (corresponding to a mass of 5.6 μg) in a static magnetic trap with a resonance frequency of 240 Hz and quality facor above 107. The combination of low temperature, large mass, and high quality factor provides a promising platform for testing quantum physics in previously unexplored regimes with high mass and long coherence times.
In a panel discussion on "Quantum Technologies: Politics & Governance" moderated by Ulrich Mans (Quantum Delta NL) within the World of QUANTUM 2023, Petra Wolff (BMBF, Referat 514, QComputing/QTechnologies), Heike Riehl (IBM Research), Marianne Schoerling (GESDA, Open Quantum Institute), and Rudolf Gross (WMI, MCQST, MQV) discussed strategies and measures to promote quantum sciences and technologies in Europe. In particular, they addressed the questions what the EU’s position can be in the global quantum race and what type of European cooperation in QST is needed to achieve longterm technology leadership in Europe.
The extended 3rd edition of the textbook "Festkörperphysik: Aufgaben und Lösungen" by Gross, Marx, Einzel and Geprägs appeared at De Gruyter Oldenbourg. By providing full solutions, the exercise book with over 100 tasks and complete sample solutions allows students to both consolidate and expand their knowledge and to test what they have learned. The extended 3rd edition with many new exercises on topolgical quantum matter is ideally suited for exam preparation.
The Excellence Cluster MCQST awards annual prizes to the students of the Master Course in Quantum Science & Technology submitting the best master thesis. At the Munich Conference on Quantum Science and Technology 2023, one of the two prizes was handed over to Wun Kwan Yam for his Master Thesis on "Microwave Quantum Teleportation Over a Thermal Channel", which he did at WMI under the supervision of Kirill Fedorov. The award comes with a small prize money kindly donated by Zurich Instruments AG. "We heartly congratulate Wan Kwan Yam and wish him the same success for his ongoing PhD thesis", MCQST spokesperson Rudolf Gross said during the Award Ceremony.
Each year, the Excellence Cluster MCQST awards up to two scientists with the MCQST Distinguished Lecturer Award. In 2023, the prize has been awarded to Andreas Wallraff of ETH Zurich during a public event in the Munich Künstlerhaus. "We are very pleased to acknowledge the outstanding scientific achievements of Andreas Wallraff in the field of quantum science and technology, as well as his longterm commitment to communicate his research field to a broader public", Rudolf Gross, WMI director and spokesperson of MCQST, points out when handing over the prize medal.
