The institute currently is organized in four divisions, each led by a director with equal rights. The institute researchers are supported by several scientifically active technology development and service units. It is also the home of several Max Planck Research Groups that are organizationally independent of the divisions. The MPL hosts an International Max Planck Research School Physics of Light . Through the appointment of the directors and affiliated professors as university professors, through several affiliated groups and participation in graduate schools, a collaboration between the MPL and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg is maintained.
In 2010 Prof. Vahid Sandoghdar was appointed the third director of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light. Sandoghdar, previously working at ETH Zurich, was awarded the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Professorships at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. His fields of interest comprise nanooptics, biophotonics and plasmonics.
Division Guck - "Biological Optomechanics"
On Oktober 1st, 2018 Jochen Guck was named Director of the new Division "Biological Optomechanics". His team will do basic research in the field of biophysics and in the interface between physics and medicine. In the coming years Guck will move to the Max Planck Zentrum für Physik und Medizin, which is being built in a cooperation with the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuernberg and the University Hospital Erlangen.
Max Planck - University of Ottawa Centre for Extreme and Quantum Photonics" offers a platform for close cooperation and scientific exchange between uOttawa and the Max Planck Society. Since 2012, uOttawa and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light have maintained intensive research collaboration through student and staff exchanges, international workshops and joint research projects. Particular emphasis is placed on the development of very high-intensity laser sources, the development of optical methods relevant to quantum information science, and the manufacture of components for classical and quantum photonics.
History
The purpose of Max Planck Research Groups at various universities is to strengthen networking between universities and institutes of the Max Planck Society. In 2004, the Max-Planck Society established a new Max Planck Research Group, "Optics, Information, and Photonics", at the Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nuremberg to advance collaboration between that university and the Max Planck Society. In June 2008, after an evaluation, the senate of the Max Planck Society decided to convert this group to a Max Planck institute and thereupon founded the "Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light". with effect from January 1, 2009. In 2016, the new building was opened. The project was made by the Munich architecture bureau Fritsch + Tschaidse Architekten GmbH.
