Full auditorium at this year's CINSaT Autumn Colloquium with exciting lectures and poster presentations on current research highlights in biology, chemistry, physics and engineering

On Wednesday, October 25, 2017, the annual CINSaT Autumn Colloquium took place at the University of Kassel's Heinrich-Plett-Strasse campus. The Autumn Colloquium is a public event that was established with the aim of providing all interested parties with insights into current research topics at CINSaT. These manifest themselves significantly through the interdisciplinary cooperation between the disciplines of biology, chemistry, physics and engineering. This time, the content of the conference was therefore focused on the main research topics of the CINSaT, which were brought closer to the auditorium by presentations of external speakers with reference to three-dimensional nanostructures, biosensorics, photonics and quantum technology.

The colloquium was opened with a warm welcome by CINSaT spokesperson Prof. Dr. Johann Peter Reithmaier, who introduced the series of lectures with an introduction to the research architecture of the CINSaT. The audience was once again comprised of numerous professors, doctoral candidates, as well as bachelor and master students from various fields of study. The proportion of students was particularly pleasing this time.

The first part of the lecture series was opened by Prof. Dr. Henning Fouckhardt, head of the Department of Integrated Optoelectronics & Microoptics at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, with the topic "RIE-RAS: In-situ etch depth control with nm precision during reactive ion etching (RIE) - by reflectance anisotropy spectroscopy (RAS)". Subsequently, Prof. Dr. Gerhard Rempe from the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching presented current developments on the topic "Quantum Internet - Science or fiction". After the lecture ended with an exciting discussion round, the participants could use the half-hour break to get to know each other.

In the second part of the lecture series, Prof. Dr. Matthias Karg from the University of Düsseldorf presented current research results on the topic "Interface-mediated self-assembly of multifunctional core-shell building blocks: structural control and functional superstructures". The exciting lecture on the production and self-assembly of colloidal nanostructures was followed by a captivating presentation by Dr. Ulrich Rant on "Electro-switchable biomolecules on surfaces for sensing applications" from the company Dynamic Biosensors.

As usual, the event was rounded off by an extensive poster session following the presentations of the guest speakers. The student union of the University of Kassel took care of the physical well-being. During the poster session, the participants had the opportunity for stimulating scientific discussions and information about current research projects within the CINSaT.

Finally, this year's jury - consisting of CINSaT members Prof. Dr. Peter Lehmann, Prof. Dr. Arno Müller and PD Dr. Mohammed Benyoucef - awarded prizes for the 3 best poster contributions (1st place: tablet, 2nd place: external hard drive, 3rd place: wireless presenter). Prior to the awarding of the prizes, the jury emphasized that this year it had been particularly difficult to select the three best among the numerous high-quality entries. This is also reflected in the enormously high number of participants, with more than 50 poster contributions for the first time, which - like last year - once again set a record, thus impressively reflecting the upward trend of the past years. This year, the poster "Cooling of a Superconducting Qubit using Quantum Optimal Control" by Daniel Basilewitsch was voted first place by the poster jury. Second and third place went to Andrei Kors with his poster "Telecom wavelength single quantum dots" and Jendrik Gördes with his presentation on "Fabrication of Variously Shaped Polymeric Janus Particles with Exchange Bias Caps via Reversal Nanoimprint Lithography".