It is a significant success for Prof. Dr. Birgit Stiller and her team at Leibniz University Hannover’s PhoenixD Cluster of Excellence and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen: the physicist and mathematician has received one of the internationally coveted ERC consolidator grants. The funding line from the European Research Council (ERC) is intended for researchers with seven to twelve years of experience since completing their doctoral degree whose independent research group is currently in the consolidation phase. Over the next five years, Birgit Stiller will receive up to 3 million euros in funding to advance her research project, titled Computing with Light and Sound.
“My project focuses on alternative computing architectures for neuromorphic computing, which mimics the way the human brain functions. I want to investigate new approaches to improving machine learning and artificial intelligence,” says Prof. Dr. Birgit Stiller, who was appointed to a W3 professorship at LUH this year and is a member of the executive board of the PhoenixD Cluster of Excellence. Since 2019 she has also led an independent research group at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen. “We will use light-sound interactions in glass fibres and photonic chips to produce versatile neural network structures – so-called optoacoustic neural networks.”
Stiller wants to use her research to find ways to reduce the heavy energy consumption of today’s data processing centres. To achieve this goal, she is using photonics, the science and technology of light. This requires her to work with individual particles of light, known as photons. “Photonics is a promising solution because it enables parallel computing and therefore high bandwidth,” says Stiller. Numerous research groups, including the various teams of the PhoenixD Cluster of Excellence in Hannover and Braunschweig, are working on the optical implementation of neural networks.
“Acoustics is a real novelty in this area and will add flexible, reconfigurable building blocks that will ultimately give the optical neural networks new functions,” explains Stiller. Among other things, the desired functions could include self-learning and recurrent neural networks. Stiller has decided on optical fibres or photonic chips for her research because both platforms are highly developed. “Glass fibres are everywhere – today they are in almost every street. We will also push forward into the quantum domain and implement several ideas for quantum-based neural networks,” says Stiller of her research plans.
“The generous funding provided through the ERC Consolidator Grant makes it possible for me and my team to realise this new research approach,” she says. “I am extremely pleased about this chance.” Stiller now has the opportunity to carry out classic fibre-optic and quantum-optic experiments with new high-end equipment and to expand her research team in Hannover and Erlangen.
Through its Consolidator Grants, the ERC funds excellent scientists who have accumulated seven to twelve years of research experience since completing their doctoral degree and have submitted an excellent research proposal. This year the European Research Council has awarded Consolidator Grants to 328 researchers, providing a total of 678 million euros in funding. Only 328 (14.2 per cent) of the 2,313 applications submitted managed to impress the jury. With 67 projects awarded funding, Germany was particularly successful this year, followed by France and Great Britain (38 projects each) and the Netherlands (37 projects). The funding is expected to lead to the creation of approximately 2,750 positions for postdocs, doctoral candidates and other employees at the research facilities.
Since the PhoenixD Cluster of Excellence was founded in 2019, five other members have received an ERC grant: Michael Kues (Starting Grant), Boris Chichkov (Advanced Grant), Philipp Junker (Consolidator Grant), Andrea Trabattoni (Starting Grant) and PhoenixD advisory council member Liberato Manna (Advanced Grant).
An overview of ERC-funded researchers at LUH is available at https://www.uni-hannover.de/en/forschung/profil/herausragende-projekte/erc.
PhoenixD Cluster of Excellence
The PhoenixD Cluster of Excellence, led by Leibniz University Hannover, is a collaboration between the Technische Universität Braunschweig, the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute), the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt and the Laser Zentrum Hannover. More than 120 scientists from the areas of physics, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemistry, computer science and mathematics conduct research on cutting-edge optical systems and their production and application. PhoenixD has received 52 million euros in funding for the period 2019–2025 from the federal government and the state of Lower Saxony through the German Research Foundation (DFG). www.phoenixd.uni-hannover.de/en
Note to editors:
For further information, please contact Prof. Dr. Birgit Stiller via email: birgit.stiller@phoenixd.uni-hannover.de.
