March 26th 2025
RIGOROSUM
Alexander EBER
Coherent sensing of atmospheric trace gases for environmental monitoring
Alexander Eber successfully defended his doctoral thesis „Coherent sensing of atmospheric trace gases for environmental monitoring“ on March 26th 2025. We could invite Prof. Mark Wenig, LMU Munich, to Graz as second reviewer who is an expert on remote sensing of air pollutants and other atmospheric parameters
Congratulations, Alexander!
March 3rd 2025
International Women´s Day
Together with Young Academy Co-Member Jillian Petersen, I got the opportunity to present my research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. "Searching for Trace Gases and Species in the Sea and Atmosphere" was the title of the event on the eve of International Women's Day at the OeAW. It was great to discuss how our complex environment is connected and how we try to learn about it across different scientific disciplines.
An interview (in German) related to this occasion can be found here: Ohne Vorbilder in die Forschung
February 24th 2025
Publication Alert
Adrian’s work on “Ultra-broadband UV/VIS spectroscopy enabled by resonant dispersive wave emission of a frequency comb” got published in Optics Express!
Congratulations, Adrian!
Ultra-broadband UV/VIS spectroscopy enabled by resonant dispersive wave emission of a frequency comb
February 13th 2025
RIGOROSUM
Lukas Fürst
Ultraviolet Dual Comb Spectroscopy
Lukas Fürst successfully defended his doctoral thesis „Ultraviolet Dual Comb Spectroscopy“ on February 13th 2025. We could invite Prof. Sandrine Galtier, Université Claude Bernard Lyon, to Graz as second reviewer.
Congratulations, Lukas!
February 11th 2025
Our Coherent Sensing Lab 4 is now equipped with two optical tables!
Big thanks to Rupert, Christoph, Werner, Adrian, Armin, Elias, Robert and Mithun for implementing the ~ 1 ton optical tables! The Coherent Sensing Lab 4 is ready for spectroscopic equipment.😊
January 2025
Visit from Lille
Arno Mussot from the University of Lille, France, visited us with his postdoctoral fellow Debanuj Chatterjee and some fibers for spectral broadening and pulse compression for the next level of ultra broadband dual comb spectroscopy.
Thanks, Arno and Deb, for your visit! We had lots of fun with you in the lab and in the Wirtshaus!😊
December 2024
Full house with Ferenc Krausz
Nobel laureate Ferenc Krausz visited Graz and the IEP in December 2024. We were so proud while giving him a lab tour! This exceptional day peaked in Ferenc’s inspiring evening talk “Sub-atomic motions probe human health”, this year’s BioTechMed Nobel lecture. We counted more than 500 visitors, our grand lecture hall P1 was too small for so many science enthusiasts.
Thank you so much for coming!
September 23rd 2024
Wolf Outstanding Student Paper Prize
Lukas receives the Wolf Student Paper Prize at the Frontiers in Optics (FIO) Conference in Denver for the work entitled
"Near-ultraviolet Dual-comb Spectroscopy / Absolute Absorption Cross Section of Formaldehyde"
Congratulations, Lukas!
April 10th 2024
Our novel broadband UV dual comb spectrometer becomes official!
Congratulations, Lukas!
The world’s first broadband UV dual comb spectrometer revolutionizes air pollutant analysis. It enables real-time tracking of pollutants and their reactions with the environment. The work got now published in OPTICA.
Check out more details
Press release:
Novel UV Broadband Spectrometer Revolutionises Air Pollutand Analysis
Puplication:
Broadband near-ultraviolet dual comb spectroscopy
February 12th 2024
The work of our first field deployed dual comb spectrometer got published!
Congratulations, Alex!
We successfully tracked the concentration of nitrogen dioxide in the city of Graz. We achieved a temporal resolution of one minute and a detection sensitivity of only 5 ppb.
To our knowledge, this is the first mobile dual comb spectrometer capable of measuring NO2.
Check out more details:
Coherent field sensing of nitrogen dioxide (optica.org)
February 8th 2024
Dual Poster Presentation on Dual Comb Spectroscopy
Armin and Elias show their posters in parallel on this year`s first DocDay!
January 29th 2024
Coherent Sensing Group meets Anne L’Huillier
Group Excursion to the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) in Vienna for this year’s ISTA Lecture:
Anne L’Huillier talked about “Attosecond Pulses For Studying Ultrafast Electron Dynamics”. The most important step towards attosecond pulses is high harmonic generation that has been studied extensively by Anne L’Huillier and that plays also a crucial part in our Project ELFIS, funded by the ERC.
January 26th 2024
Coherent Sensing Group visits Ball der Technik
Part of the team entered “one of the nicest balls of Austria”!
June 2023
Coherent Sensing Group in June 2023
April 2023
Group Excursion to the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) in Vienna: The German Physical Society (DPG) and the Austrian Physical Society (ÖPG) organized this year`s Lise Meitner Lecture with the ÖAW. Donna Strickland shared her insights and experiences with quite different aspects of chirped pulse amplification in her talk on “Generating High-Intensity, Ultrashort Optical Pulses”.
Event link: https://www.oeaw.ac.at/news/ultrakurze-lichtpulse
October 2022
With the start of my university professorship, we are expanding our research focus as Coherent Sensing group to applied environmental sciences including atmospheric monitoring, trace gas sensing and the investigation of novel materials for photo-voltaics.
Stay tuned for the latest developments, open positions or contact me directly:
bernhardt@tugraz.at
April 2022
"Wie man mit Lasern fotografiert"
Read about our latest research projects in our contribution to the
ÖAW Junge Akademie Blog @ DER STANDARD
February 2022
First NUV Dual Comb Spectroscopy
Lukas Fürst optimizing his first interferogram, produced by two interfering near-ultraviolet frequency combs.
October 2021
First field campaign of dual comb spectroscopy in Europe
Inital measurements of our urban atmosphere above the TUG Campus Neue Technik, together with the Lienhart Group, Geodesy, TU Graz
July 2021
Dual Comb Spectroscopy Lab II starts operating
Our spectroscopic investigations can be expanded thanks to our new second laboratory!
May 2021
ERC Starting Grant ELFIS launches
ELFIS rocks! Stay tuned for our next-level spectroscopy platform in the EXTREME Ultraviolet brought to you by the European Research Council!
Dezember 2020
FWF START Project ELFIS starts
Electronic Fingerprint Spectroscopy unravels photo-induced dynamics in the near ultraviolet spectral region.
3rd September 2020
ERC STARTING GRANT 2020 PRIZE
Birgitta Bernhardt receives the renowned prize for her project to investigate the interaction between UV light and matter in spectral ranges that have not yet been extensively researched.
17th June 2020
FWF START 2020 PRIZE
With her project Electronic Fingerprint Spectroscopy, Birgitta Bernhardt will develop a novel spectrometer that enables a closer look onto electron dynamics in molecules.
March 2020
VIS Spectrometer ready
Our VIS Dual Comb Spectrometer starts its operation.
Central wavelength: 515nm
July 2019
Our article
"Ultrafast quantum control of ionization dynamics in krypton"
was one of the most read* Nature Communications physics articles in 2018!
*Check out the full collection of Nature Communications:
Top 50: Physics