News

Ursula Keller wins “Swiss Nobel” Marcel Benoist Prize- for pioneering work in ultrafast lasers
MUST2022 Conference- a great success!
New scientific highlights- by MUST PIs Wörner, Chergui, and Richardson
FELs of Europe prize for Jeremy Rouxel- “Development or innovative use of advanced instrumentation in the field of FELs”
Ruth Signorell wins Doron prizefor pioneering contributions to the field of fundamental aerosol science
New FAST-Fellow Uwe Thumm at ETH- lectures on Topics in Femto- and Attosecond Science
International Day of Women and Girls in Science- SSPh asked female scientists about their experiences
New scientific highlight- by MUST PIs Milne, Standfuss and Schertler
EU XFEL Young Scientist Award for Camila Bacellar,beamline scientist and group leader of the Alvra endstation at SwissFEL
Prizes for Giulia Mancini and Rebeca Gomez CastilloICO/IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Optics & Ernst Haber 2021
Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to RESOLV Member Benjamin List- for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis
NCCR MUST at Scientifica 2021- Lightning, organic solar cells, and virtual molecules

SMEs and start-ups

Five start-ups were established with MUST PIs actively involved:
  1. Plair SA (Jean-Pierre Wolf), started in November 2013, develops all-optical real-time detector of atmospheric particulate matter, allergens and pollutants. Plair SA CEO won the international 2016 Hydro-Meteorological Equipment Industry (HMEI) Award for best engineer.
  2. AME GmbH (Thomas Feurer), established in December 2014 for the 3D-printing of optical components used in THz setups. AME GmbH won the Bern Business Creation Competition on March 5, 2015 (see news items), but was dissolved in 2020.
  3. SThAR (Jiri Vanicek) was established in 2014, and dissolved in 2018. They were motivated by their analysis of the coupling between vibrational motions in many-dimensional systems upon excitation via a laser field. The company applied similar strategies to solving problems of complex dynamical networks in everyday life. One of the founders (A. Hernando de Castro) started a new company using the same technology (KIDO Dynamics, Lausanne & Madrid)
  4. Aekip SA (Jacques Moser), founded in 2015. In collaboration with the group of Prof. Jacques Moser in EPFL and with support of the industrial project program in NCCR MUST, Aekip develops a compact prototype for THz endoscopy, in order to perform THz imaging and spectroscopy in vivo. The system will be applied for cancer detection in hollow organs and in live tissues during surgery. See also: Aekip Presentation.
  5. IONIGHT (Thomas Feurer), was founded in November 2013 to provide high-end Laser Ablation/Ionization Mass Spectrometers (LIMS) for industrial applications. It was supported by CTI, BaseCamp4HighTech and the Volkswirtschaft Stiftung. It was dissolved in 2018.
  6. 8photonics (Thomas Feurer:(2020), a new start-up which sells modular optics prototyping platforms. It was founded by one of the founders of IONIGHT (M. Ryser).
Several start-ups or SMEs were supported through projects with NCCR MUST PIs:
  1. Tibio sagl (with Jean-Pierre Wolf through IPP LAWC)
  2. Thin Film Physics AG (with Thomas Südmeyer through IPP Ultrafast-UV)
  3. Zurich Instruments (with Ursula Keller through IPP CEOStab)
  4. OneFive (now NKT Photonics) (with Thomas Feurer through the "Strong Franc" project Two-Pulse)
  5. Rainbow Photonics (with associate PI Christoph Hauri through the "Strong Franc" project High-Power)
  6. Bystronic (with Thomas Feurer through a project to develop a virtual laser machining tool)
  7. ARCoptix (with associate PI Steve Lecomte at CSEM)
In addition, current or former NCCR MUST PIs were involved in the development of 8 start-ups on topics not directly linked to the NCCR MUST:
  1. Time Bandwidth Products (Ursula Keller), acquired by JDSU in January 2014 (news item), the photonics division of which is now (since October 2015) the independent company Lumentum
  2. Adlares (Jean-Pierre Wolf)
  3. Dectris (PSI)
  4. Diagnoswiss (Hubert Girault)
  5. Edel for life (Hubert Girault), formerly Edeltherapeutics
  6. kspace.ch (Jürg Osterwalder)
  7. Heptares (Gebhard Schertler)
  8. PHASETECH (Peter Hamm)
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The National Centres of Competence in Research (NCCR) are a research instrument of the Swiss National Science Foundation