The Department of Physics at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin at Adlershof Campus
The research activities of the Department of Physics, where there are currently 37 professorships (including 16 joint professorships with non-university research institutes, two joint professorships with the Department of Mathematics and one joint professorship with the Department of Chemistry), one junior professorships and 3 Independent Junior Research Groups, comprise the topics
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Elementary Particle Physics
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Condensed Matter Physics
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Macromolecules/Complex Systems
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Optics/Photonics.
Further research areas are Physics Education and cross-departmentally Mathematical Physics.
The scientists of the department contribute substantially to 3 Collaborative Research Centres and 5 Research Training Groups and Graduate Schools. One Collaborative Research Centre and two Research Training Groups are coordinated by the department. Moreover, the Department of Physics is involved in interdisciplinary research alliances like the Integrative Research Institute for the Sciences Adlershof (IRIS), the Cluster of Excellence "Matters of Activity. Image Space Material" the Hermann von Helmholtz Centre for Cultural Techniques (HZK) as well as the two Interdisciplinary Centres Kolleg Mathematik Physik Berlin (KMPB) and Computational Neuroscience (Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin).
The Department of Physics moved into its new building in the Science, Business and Media Site Berlin-Adlershof in March 2003. The annual number of first-year students has stabilized at a high level. In the academic year 2016/17, 328 students were enrolled in the first semester of the bachelor’s programme, 182 of them in the consecutive Mono-Bachelor’s/Master’s programme Physics. The Department also offers Combined Bachelor’s/Master’s programmes (with teacher training option) and the English-language Master’s programme Optical Sciences (in which all research institutes in Berlin-Adlershof, which are active in the field of optics and photonics, are involved) and participates in the English-language Master’s programme Polymer Science, organised jointly by the three Universities in Berlin and the University of Potsdam. In total, 1095 students were enrolled at the Department of Physics in the year 2016/17.
In addition to the cooperation with working groups of the Departments of Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Medical Physics and Biophysics of the Humboldt-Universität as well as with various working groups of the other Universities in Berlin and the Potsdam University, the Department of Physics maintains intensive contacts and cooperation with numerous non-university research institutes in the Berlin-Brandenburg area. Long-term cooperation agreements exist with the Max-Born-Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy (MBI), the Institute for Cristal Growth (IKZ), the Ferdinand-Braun-Institut für Höchstfrequenztechnik (FBH) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), all located in Adlershof, and also with the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialen und Energie (HZB), the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Zeuthen, the Paul-Drude-Institut für Festkörperelektronik (PDI) and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). They are represented by joint professorships in the Department of Physics (HZB 5, DESY 4, MBI 3, IKZ 1, PDI 1, FBH 1, DLR 1 and PIK 1).
The Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics and the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, both in Potsdam-Golm, are also included in the list of important non-university cooperation partners. Furthermore, we cooperate with the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung, the Fritz-Haber-Institute of the Max-Planck-Society, the Weierstrass Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochastics, the Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum für Informationstechnik and the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications (Heinrich Hertz Institute). The cooperation extends from individual projects, research units, collaborative research centres and a research training group to joint mentoring of Master students and doctoral students.
The Department of Physics also actively collaborates in the Competence Network for Optical Technologies Berlin-Brandenburg (OptecBB). Siemens AG, smaller Adlershof companies and own spin-offs in Adlershof are to be mentioned as cooperation with industry.
Every year during the "Long Night of the Sciences", the Department of Physics proves to be a visitor magnet.