Events
GIANT Transversal Skills Workshops and GIANT Lecture Series and Trainings build bridges between partners at the University of Würzburg and IISER in Thiruvananthapuram through a hybrid format. Unlike typical online events, hybrid teaching and learning scenarios aim to connect physical and virtual spaces in such a way that both online participants and those on-site are equally actively involved in the events.
On Thursday, December 4th, we step out of the lab and into the world of entrepreneurship, knowledge and technology transfer.
Departure: 12:15 PM, Parking Space at Building Z6
14:00 Welcome & Tour, Dr. Sebastian Engel@Zollhof Nuremberg
Confirmed speaker:
Prof. Lukas Worschech, GIANT JMU Project Coordinator
Christoph Heynen, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, S-OUTREACH – Outreach Support
Matthias Trost, CEO, FAU Start-up Amperial Technologies GmbH
Dr. Mikhail Antonkin, Bavarian Research Alliance (BayFOR)
18:00 End
~ Evening at the Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt ~
Retour to Wuerzburg: 21:30
Further details will be successively added.
Please make sure to RSVP!
Contact: rebekka.steinmann@uni-wuerzburg.de
Wednesday, 03.12.2025, 13:00 -17:30, the Center for Nanosystems Chemistry hosts a Scientific Workshop at the Center for Nanosystems Chemistry where GIANT guest students, professores and co-workers have the chance to meet, discuss their experience and present the research project they have been working on at JMU.
A Christmassy coffee break will hopefully provide a nice opportunity to mingle and exchange before the first GIANT interns at JMU return to India, end of December.
For questions concerning the Scientific Workshop, please get in touch with Dr. Yvonne Wagenhäuser, member of Prof. Frank Würthners team at the Institute of Organic Chemistry.
GIANT-Transversal Skills Workshops are held in a particularly designed and equipped hybrid classroom. We like to thank our partners, the JMU chair for adult education and the DigitTaKS team for their generous support in delivering this series of full hybrid workshops.
Date: 17.10.2025
Duration: 10:00 - 15:00, participants are warmly welcome to join us onsite for coffee and a chat from 9:30 on and stay for networking afterwards
Format: hybrid / interactive
Contents:
- General introduction to intercultural communication / aims of the workshop
- Warm up Exercise: typical challenges
- Short presentation: Indian culture / German culture
- Group discussion on case studies / scenarios
Trainer Anna Scarabel, M.A., member of JMU’s India Competence Centre
GIANT Lectures and Trainings from the participating disciplines are technically supported by the organizing departments. These also employ hybrid scenarios with varying degrees of interaction among participants. GIANT Lectures and Trainings are generally closed events intended for those funded through the project. Information on whether external guests may attend can be found in the respective event descriptions.
The research area Functional Nanosystems – Materials Chemistry (FN-MC) invites to the live broadcast of a three-part lecture series presented by Prof. Dr. Frank Würthner at IISER-TVM, hosted at the Center for Nanosystems Chemistry.
Lecture 1: 27/10/2025 Functional Nanosystems 1: Supramolecular Engineering of Light Energy Converting Nanosystems
Lecture 2: 28/10/2025 Functional Nanosystems 2: Supramolecular Engineering of Photoluminescent Nanosystems
Lecture 3: 29/10/2025 Functional Nanosystems 3: Supramolecular Engineering of Nanographene pi- and Anion Receptors
Indian Time 6:30 PM (German Time 2:00 PM) to Indian Time 8:30 PM (German Time 4:00 PM)
Interested guests may contact the organizer via the registration form below.
Prof. Bert Hecht, chair of the Nano-Optics & Biophotonics group, Experimental Physics 5, University of Würzburg delivers a three-part lecture series at the School of Physics, IISER-TVM from 7.11.2025 - 11.11.2025.
High-end plasmonic nanostructures: Forces, strong coupling, nonlinearities
Friday, 7. November 2025, 3:30 PM, IISER-TVM, School of Physics Seminar Hall
Abstract: The precision afforded by He-ion beam milling on monocrystalline gold and silver flakes presents an opportunity to tailor local fields at an unprecedented level of 1 nm. This method enables the fabrication of intricate structural details, which can be used to create nanoresonators and antennas with unique properties. We leverage these capabilities to create devices that exhibit local symmetry breaking, ultrasmall mode volumes, and precise chiral scattering. The lecture will introduce some basics of plasmonics and fabrication, and then progress towards more applied topics.
References
- Meier, J., Zurak, L., Locatelli, A., Feichtner, T., Kullock, R. and Hecht, B. “Second harmonic generation from plasmonic hotspots by controlled local symmetry breaking,” Adv. Optical Mater.,11, 2300731 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1002/adom.202300731.
- Groß, H., Hamm, J. M., Tufarelli, T., Hess, O. & Hecht, B. “Near-field strong coupling of single quantum dots,” Science Advances 4 (3), eaar4906 (2018). https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aar4906
- Wu, X., Ehehalt, R., Razinskas, G. Feichtner, T., Qin, J. and Hecht, B. “Light-driven microdrones,“ Nat. Nanotechnol. 17, 477–484 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-022-01099-z
Advanced topics in Plasmonics: Topological edge states and subwavelength OLED pixels
Monday, 9. November 2025, 6:00 PM, IISER-TVM School of Physics Seminar Hall
Abstract: In his second lecture, Bert Hecht will report on the latest results that make use of plasmonic mode coupling and modification of the local density of states in plasmonic nanostructures. The first experiment realizes a plasmonic Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model in which collective but localized edge modes appear in the middle of a band gap [1]. We visualize the subwavelength structure of these modes by photo-electron emission microscopy. The second experiment reports on organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) that have subwavelength dimensions while still possessing individual electrical connections. Screens with such small pixels may be needed in miniaturized projectors for augmented/virtual reality applications. We will discuss how the scaling of conventional OLEDs breaks down upon miniaturization and why new, plasmonic nanoantenna-based concepts are expected to play an important role in subwavelength OLED pixels [2].
References
- Plasmonic Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chains with strong coupling amplitudes, Benedikt Schurr, Matthias Hensen, Luisa Brenneis, Philipp Kessler, Jin Qin, Victor Lisinetskii, Ronny Thomale, Tobias Brixner, Bert Hecht. https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.02603. To appear in Science Advances (2025)
- Individually addressable nanoscale OLEDs, Cheng Zhang, Björn Ewald, Leo Siebigs, Luca Steinbrecher, Maximilian Rödel, Thomas Fleischmann, Monika Emmerling, Jens Pflaum, and Bert Hecht, Science Advances 11(43), https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adz8579 (2025)
Physics Department Colloquium - Light-driven microdrones: From fundamentals to application
Tuesday, 11. November 2025, 4:00 PM, PSB Seminar Hall,
Abstract: We recently have introduced light-driven microdrones – objects that can be controlled by unfocused laser light in aqueous environments in all six degrees of freedom in 2D [1]. In the colloquium we will introduce the concept of light-driven nanomotors and how they can be used to build microdrones. We will then proceed to discuss potential applications. An important step is to supplement the microdrones with a resonant gold cross antenna which acts as a plasmonic tweezer element [2]. This addresses the critical challenge of nanometer-precise transport and delivery of cargo, particularly nano-sized particles, in liquid media. We demonstrate intricate interactive manipulation sequences, including trapping, transport, release, and re-trapping of nanodiamond particles, underscoring the transformative potential of our approach for applications ranging from transport of nanoscale cargo and drug delivery to localized quantum sensing.
References
- Light-driven microdrones, Xiaofei Wu, Raphael Ehehalt, Gary Razinskas, Thorsten Feichtner, Jin Qin & Bert Hecht, Nature Nanotechnology 17, 477-484 (2022), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-022-01099-z
- Light-driven plasmonic microrobot for nanoparticle manipulation, Jin Qin, Xiaofei Wu, Anke Krueger & Bert Hecht, Nat Commun 16, 2570 (2025), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-57871-x
Data protection is particularly important to the University of Würzburg, which is why we are happy to fulfil our obligation in accordance with Art. 13 para. 1 of the General Data Protection Regulation and provide you with the following information on the processing of your data.
The controller for data processing is the University of Würzburg, Sanderring 2, 97070 Würzburg, e-mail: info@uni-wuerzburg.de. If you have any questions about data protection, you can contact the University's data protection officer, Sanderring 2, 97070 Würzburg, e-mail: datenschutz@uni-wuerzburg.de.
The personal data collected from you will be used exclusively for the purpose of participation at GIANT events. We are authorised to do so in accordance with Art. 6 para. 1 letter a GDPR. In the event that you participate in hybrid parts of the conference, we would like to point out that we use ZOOM here. You can find more information about ZOOM at: Privacy policy and information on data processing including information from end devices (German only).
Your data will be stored at the University of Würzburg and deleted after the end of the GIANT project.
Further information about your rights regarding the GDPR can be found here: https://go.uniwue.de/betroffenenrechte (German only)
By submitting your data, you declare that you have taken note of the privacy policy and agree to it.
Bitte dieses Feld NICHT ausfülleDatenschutzerklärung und Einwilligung zur DatenerhebungDer Datenschutz ist der Universität Würzburg besonders wichtig, deshalb kommen wir unserer Verpflichtung gemäß Art. 13 Abs. 1 der Datenschutzgrundverordnung gerne nach und geben Ihnen folgende Informationen zur Verarbeitung Ihrer Daten. Verantwortlicher für die Datenverarbeitung ist die Universität Würzburg, Sanderring 2, 97070 Würzburg, E-Mail: info@uni-wuerzburg.de. Für Fragen des Datenschutzes können Sie sich an den behördlichen Datenschutzbeauftragten der Universität, Sanderring 2, 97070 Würzburg, E-Mail: datenschutz@uni-wuerzburg.de wenden. Die von Ihnen erhobenen personenbezogenen Daten werden ausschließlich zum Zweck der Teilnahme an den Veranstaltung im Rahmen des GIANT Projektes genutzt. Hierzu sind wir nach Art. 6 Abs. 1 Buchst. a DSGVO berechtigt. Für den Fall, dass SIe an hybriden Teilen der Konferenz teilnehmen, machen wir Sie darauf aufmerksam, dass wir hier ZOOM nutzen. Nähere Angaben zu ZOOM finden Sie unter: Datenschutzerklärung und Information zur Datenverarbeitung einschließlich Informationen von Endgeräten. Ihre Daten werden an der Universität Würzburg gespeichert und nach Projektende gelöscht. Weitere Informationen über Ihre Rechte bezüglich der DSGVO finden Sie hier: https://go.uniwue.de/betroffenenrechte Mit dem Absenden Ihrer Daten erklären Sie, dass Sie die Datenschutzerklärung zur Kenntnis genommen haben und damit einverstanden sind.
