Enhancing light-matter interactions

During our recent visit at Qlibri our doctoral candidates got a firsthand look at how optical microcavities are being developed at the start-up.

On our recent visit to the startup Qlibri GmbH, a glass fiber as thin as a hair was passed around. At its tip: An atomically smooth curved mirror, not visible to the naked eye.

This tiny mirror lies at the heart of Qlibri’s work with optical microcavities: Within these resonators, light can bounce back and forth many, many times (up to 100,000 times). This extreme confinement can greatly enhance light-matter interactions, which are useful for applications such as microscopy and quantum optics. 

During our visit at Qlibri, our doctoral candidates and those of the IMPRS-QST got a firsthand look at how this technology is being developed at the startup, which is a spin-off of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

The visit kicked off with a talk by Sambit Mitra, a former researcher at the IMPRS-APS who completed his doctoral studies in the group of Prof. Matthias Kling in 2023. Since then, he has been working at Qlibri as a tech lead. Starting with a ride down memory lane to his time at our graduate school, Sambit welcomed our researchers before giving insights into the company and his work life there. 

After the talk, the PhD students got to tour the labs and experienced how the microscopically small fiber-mirrors are manufactured, tested and put into application in cavity enhanced absorption microscopes and cryogenic ultra-stable microcavity platforms. 

The event ended with a poster session, giving the doctoral candidates a chance to exchange informally with Qlibri employees over pizza and drinks. 

Thanks to Qlibri for hosting us and offering us a glimpse into the work of a deep-tech bootstrapped startup!

 

Photos: Nina Beier