Recognizing excellent research at the TU Munich

International accolades for TUM researchers

For a long time skyrmions were merely a theoretical model in particle physics – until 2008, when Christian Pfleiderer, Peter Böni and their team discovered skyrmions in a magnetic material for the first time using neutron scattering at the FRM II.

“For the theoretical prediction, the experimental discovery and the theoretical analysis of a magnetic skyrmion phase in manganese silicon (MnSi), a new state of matter,” they, together with three other physics professors, received the Europhysics Prize in the Condensed Matter Division of the European Physical Society.

Prof. Reinhard Kienberger, Chair of Laser and X-Ray Physics at TU Munich is a pioneer of attosecond physics. An attosecond is to a second approximately as a second is to the age of the universe.

Using such extremely short light pulses allows electronic processes in atoms, molecules and solid bodies to be resolved temporally. The Quantum Electronics and Optics Division (QEOD) of the European Physical Society has now distinguished his trailblazing work in the field with this year’s Prize for Research in Laser Science and Applications.

The European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences (ECCOMAS) has awarded Prof. Wolfgang A. Wall the Prandtl Medal for his extraordinary and unremitting contributions to the field of numerical fluid dynamics. It is the first time a scientist from Germany has received the Prandtl Medal.

Ludwig Prandtl (1875 – 1953) was the son of the Weihenstephan agricultural science professor Alexander Prandtl and is considered a pioneer in the field of fluid dynamics. He studied at Technische Hochschule München, the precursor of today’s TUM. The southern access road to the Research Campus Garching, among other things, is named after him.