Ulm University
Institute for Complex Quantum Systems
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Since April 2025, Dr. Patrick Emonts is a CZS Junior Research Group Leader for ‘Quantum Information and Many-Body Physics’ at the Institute for Complex Quantum Systems at Ulm University. Emonts' group is working on the intersection of quantum information and many-body quantum physics. His research is focused on numerical algorithms, especially tensor networks, and spans different fields ranging from quantum information to lattice gauge theories. Additionally, he is a guest researcher in Leiden University, collaborating closely with the group for applied quantum algorithms (aQa).

Research Areas

University of Würzburg
Edna-Carter Junior Professorship for Solid State Physics

University of Stuttgart
Institut für Funktionelle Materie und Quantentechnologien
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Laëtitia Farinacci did her PhD on the topic of “Tuning the Interactions of Magnetic Molecules on a Superconductor” at Freie Universität Berlin in 2020 under the supervision of Prof. Katharina Franke. She then spent three years as a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Sander Otte's group at Delft University of Technology, focusing on the experimental observation of coherent dynamics of atomic spins. After a year as a visiting scientist at Freie Universität Berlin, she founded the CZS Junior Research Group for Quantum Photonics ‘Dynamic Control at the Atomic Level’ at the Institute for Functional Matter and Quantum Technologies (FMQ) at the University of Stuttgart in February 2024. Since January 2026, she has held the Edna Carter Junior Professorship for Solid State Physics at the University of Würzburg. 

Research Areas

• Time-Resolved Scanning Tunneling Microscopy & Electron Spin Resonance
• Magnetic bound states in superconductors (Yu-Shiba-Rusinov states)
• Topological superconductivity
• Dynamical control of matter

Since 01/2026

Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Institute of Applied Physics
Abbe Center of Photonics
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The last of the four CZS Junior Research Groups for Quantum Photonics was launched in January 2026 with Dr. Jonas Junker. After completing his PhD in 2023 at Leibniz University Hannover on the topic of ‘Quantum Metrology Using Tailored Non-Classical States’, Jonas Junker conducted postdoctoral research at the MPI for Gravitational Physics (2023), at the ANU Centre for Gravitational Astrophysics in Australia (2023-2024), and at the Technical University of Denmark in Denmark (2025).

His research group aims to advance photonic quantum technologies by combining coherent control and high-bandwidth techniques with scalable experimental platforms.

Research Areas

University of Stuttgart
5th Institute of Physics
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In August 2024, Dr. Stephan Welte established the CZS Junior Research Group for Quantum Photonics, titled “Quantum Network Nodes”, at the 5th Institute of Physics in Stuttgart. After completing his PhD in 2019 on the topic of ‘Photon-mediated quantum information processing with neutral atoms in an optical cavity’ he spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Gerhard Rempe's group at MPI for Quantum Optics in Garching on the research project ‘Quantum network experiments with two cavity QED setups’, and worked as a postdoc at ETH Zurich in Prof. Jonathan Home's group in the research project ‘Implementation of novel quantum gates between Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) encoded qubits in trapped calcium ions’ until July 2024.

The goal of his CZS Junior Research Group is to implement versatile quantum network nodes for applications in quantum communication and quantum computing. These nodes consist of optical resonators containing arrays of individually addressable neutral atoms. The atoms in the resonator act as stationary qubits that can interact with each other via photons propagating in the resonator mode.

This system will be used to implement applications in the fields of quantum communication and quantum computing. In particular, we will focus on resonator-mediated quantum information processing between atoms within the resonator, the generation of optical cluster states, and optical Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill states.

Since January 2025, Welte has also been leading a junior research group as part of the Emmy Noether Program of the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Research Areas

• Quantum Networks
• Distributed Quantum Computing
• Cold Atoms
• Cavity QED