News

Birds in flocks, bacteria, cells: in many collective systems, individual elements respond to only part of their surroundings, seemingly defying Newton’s third law of motion — action equals reaction. A Dresden physics team has now developed a theory that makes it possible to describe these interactions efficiently and simulate them far more precisely. The findings have been published in Nature Physics.

On May 21, 2026, the Würzburg–Dresden Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat – Complexity, Topology and Dynamics in Quantum Materials – will launch its new Grete Hermann Career Forge program with a kick-off meeting. This professional development program has been specifically designed for early-career women researchers pursuing an academic career. Five candidates have been selected for the first round of participants from a large pool of applicants.

A Dresden-based research team from the Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat has discovered a novel transport phenomenon. They found that luminescent quasiparticles can be carried along by magnetic excitations known as spin waves and even accelerated to ultrahigh speeds. This holds promise for future magneto-optical applications. The findings have been published in Nature Nanotechnology.

Crystals, bacterial colonies, flame fronts: the growth of surfaces was first described in the 1980s by the Kardar–Parisi–Zhang equation. Now—forty years later—a Würzburg-based research team from the Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat has achieved the first experimental demonstration of KPZ behavior on 2D surfaces in space and time. The results have been published in Science.

Researchers at the Würzburg site of the Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat have successfully transferred the topological quantum Hall and spin Hall effects to a hybrid light–matter system using targeted material design.

After 61 stops across Germany, Australia, Austria, and the United States, the traveling exhibition “RETHINKING PHYSICS: A Century of Quantum Mechanics — Time for a Female Perspective!” is drawing to an end. It remains on view at the IFW Dresden through March 10, 2026. A public colloquium will mark the official closing event.

Writing in Nature, an international team of researchers has, for the first time, demonstrated a direct link between electronic states in quantum materials and moiré superconductivity. The theoretical framework was provided by a multi-site team from the Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat.

Marked by a new focus on dynamics and a distinctive quantum vibe, the Würzburg–Dresden Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat — Complexity, Topology and Dynamics in Quantum Matter — is entering the second funding period of the German Excellence Strategy of the Federal and State Governments.

The European Research Council (ERC) is supporting a feasibility study led by Professor Yana Vaynzof, Principal Investigator at ctd.qmat, with a Proof of Concept Grant. The €150,000 award will be used to explore a new, high-speed production process for efficient photovoltaic technologies.

A new study by researchers at IFW Dresden and the Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat shows that although PtBi₂ looks like an ordinary shiny gray crystal, the electrons moving across its surfaces behave in ways never seen before. Intriguingly, the edges of the superconducting surfaces host long-sought Majorana particles — promising candidates for fault-tolerant quantum bits (qubits) in future quantum computers.