Visit of Ilona Müllerová, Vice President of the Czech Academy of Sciences, to the ÚFE

On Wednesday, December 7, we welcomed a rare and kind visitor, Ilona Müllerová, Vice President of the Czech Academy of Sciences responsible for the field of non-living nature sciences. This is the first research area of the Czech Academy of Sciences, it includes a total of 17 institutes. The Vice President spent most of her time touring the laboratories.

First, she visited the workplace of the Nano-optics team, which has just received an Academy of Sciences award for a photothermal spatial light modulator for ultra-sensitive 3D nanoscopy. Jiří Homola and Markéta Bocková presented miniaturized versions of optical biosensors to the Vice President. Michal Cifra and Daniel Havelka from the Biolektrodynamics research team boasted a new type of method for the precise determination of permittivity in a wide frequency band, for which they filed a patent application. In the laboratory of fiber lasers, Vice President was particularly interested in the European Defense Agency's TALOS project for the development of a new generation of laser air defense, for which we are developing an active optical fiber and coordinating work on a powerful fiber laser. She finished the tours in clean rooms with an electron lithographer and a custom-made electron microscope. The visit was also an opportunity for informal conversations with students both in the laboratories and during lunch in our cafeteria. The Vice President praised the growing trend of knowledge and technology transfer at ÚFE, including the recently sold licenses from the Nano-optics and Fiber Lasers team, which she wants to mention as examples of good practice at the upcoming Academic Assembly Meeting.

The visit of the Vice President was a great encouragement and joy for all of us.