Member of SCNAT

The Swiss Physical Society (SPS) is the national professional association of Physicists coming from teaching, research, development and industry. The diversity of modern research in physics is reflected in ten specific sections.

Image: ESO

Conference Overview

Plenary Session

Nine plenary talks will be adressing latest advancements in different research fields.

  • Christof Aegerter, Universität Zürich: Physics & Education – Perspectives Condensed Matter and Biophysics
  • Hatice Altug, EPFL: Frontiers in Nanophotonics: Enabling Technology for Optical Biosensing and Bioimaging
  • Dominik Brunner, Empa: Monitoring and tracking carbon dioxide emissions from satellites
  • Atac Imamoglu, ETH Zürich: Optical spectroscopy of strongly correlated electrons in two-dimensional materials
  • Frank Jenko, IPP Garching: Towards predicting plasma confinement in fusion devices
  • Teodoro Laino, IBM Research Rüschlikon: Are Language Models better than Physics based models for Chemical and Materials Industries ?
  • Teresa Montaruli, Université de Genève: The Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory
  • Hans Rudolf Ott, ETH Zürich: Large Research Infrastructures in Switzerland; History, Results and Opportunities
  • Pedro Reis, EPFL: Untangling the mechanics of knots: from shoelaces to surgical knots

Furthermore a public lecture is scheduled in the evening of Monday 27 June:

  • Thomas Stocker, Universität Bern: Climate models: Early warning system of the climate crisis

Topical Sessions

The following parallel sessions will be scheduled:

  • Applied Physics and Plasma Physics
  • Atomic Physics and Quantum Photonics
  • Biologically inspired assembly of ordered and disordered optical materials *
  • Biophysics, Medical Physics and Soft Matter
  • Condensed Matter Physics (KOND)
  • History and Philosophy of Physics
  • New prospects in ARPES for quantum materials
  • Nonequilibrium properties of quantum materials
  • Nuclear, Particle- & Astrophysics (TASK) **
  • Physics at work in Industry
  • Swiss Neutron Science on the European Scale ***

* in collaboration with NCCR Bio-Inspired Materials; ** in collaboration with CHIPP; *** in collaboration with the Swiss Neutron Science Society (SGN)

Dependent on the number and contents of the contributed papers, each topical session will be split into special thematic sub-sessions.

Poster Session

The poster session will start on 28 June evening with an apéro and will continue on 29 June with a lunch buffet. It is expected that all posters are presented on both session days.

The three most outstanding posters will be awarded with a "Best poster prize", doted with CHF 200.- each. Additionally to the above requirement, at least the first author of the poster must be personally present at the conference in order to be eligible for the selection. The awards will be given in a small ceremony on 30 June.

The maximum poster size is A0 (portrait).

Award Ceremony

As every year outstanding scientific works will be honoured with the SPS awards, in the respective fields of General Physics (sponsored by ABB Research Center), Condensed Matter Physics (sponsored by IBM Zürich Research Laboratory), Applied Physics (sponsored by Oerlikon Surface Solutions), Metrology (sponsored by METAS), in Computational Physics (sponsored by COMSOL) and Energy Technology (sponsored by Hitachi Energy Switzerland). Each award is granted with CHF 5000.-.

Furthermore the winners of the Charpak-Ritz award and the CHIPP award will also be honored.

The award ceremony will be held on 28 June at 11:00h.

General Assembly

The general assembly is scheduled for 27 June. The agenda will be published in the SPG Mitteilungen No. 67. We encourage all members to actively participate and contact the committee if special points of interest should be discussed at the assembly.

Industrial Exhibition

An exhibition with scientific devices, equipment, software and literature will be organized in parallel to the sessions. An invitation letter has been mailed to interested companies. If your company would like to join the exhibition, but did not receive the letter by the end of March, please contact the SPS Secretariat.

Conference Dinner

A conference dinner is scheduled for the evening of 29 June. You can select the dinner during the normal registration procedure. The price is CHF 80.- per person (further details will follow shortly).

Important: Since we have to plan ahead with the restaurant, it is not possible to register for the dinner on site.

The dinner fee must be paid and transferred to our account at latest by 15 June in order to guarantee your meal. We will keep only a small fraction of the unpaid dinner places, which will be assigned to persons paying cash upon arrival on a first come - first serve base.
Unfortunately we are forced to take this measure because of experiences made in previous years where too many unpaid last-minute cancellations occurred for which we still were indebted to the restaurant. We hope for your understanding.

Additional information for selected sessions

Physics at work in Industry

Technology companies are often either driven by physicists or a physical effect or device lies at the heart of their main product. In this year’s Physics in Industry session, we want to bring together presentations from a broad range of companies that span the full width of this spectrum. We specifically also welcome presentations from companies where the role of physics or physicists is maybe not immediately obvious to the outside observer but has played an important role in the success or founding process of the company.
If you are interested in presenting a talk in this session please contact the section heads.

Contact: Thilo Stöferle, Andreas Fuhrer

Theoretical Physics

As in the previous years, theoretical contributions are highly encouraged and will be included directly in a corresponding topical session. This way, the sessions will profit from a broad range of experimental, phenomenological, and theoretical advancements that are relevant in the specific topical field and thus can engage in broader and deeper discussions.
Please submit your abstract to the session which best matches your topic. You can optionally mark your contribution as "theoretical" in the submission interface.

Contact: Philippe Jetzer

Condensed Matter (KOND)

The condensed matter program welcomes contributions from all topics within Condensed Matter Physics, including magnetism, superconductivity, semiconductors and more. Where relevant, we encourage participants to submit their abstracts to the respective focus sessions described below.

Contact: Henrik M. Rønnow, Ilaria Zardo

Biologically inspired assembly of ordered and disordered optical materials

The brilliant colors found in plants, insects, birds, and mammals are the most exciting and appealing examples of how nature creates complex materials. Colored coatings and pigments play an important role in material science and applications in paints, displays, packing, and optical filters. The design targets for an industrial application are often like the challenges faced by nature: high purity of the color, optical density, bleaching stability, and long lifetime. Recently, disordered but structurally correlated materials, such as hyperuniform dielectric assemblies and networks, have led to a paradigm shift in the field. The session discusses and presents cutting-edge research that leverages nature's inspiration and aims to understand better and exploit ordered and disordered materials' optical physics and assembly.
Invited speakers are Prof. Diederik Wiersma, LENS, Univ. Florence, INRIM, Italy, and Dr. Ahmet Faik Demirörs, ETH Zürich. Contributed talks and posters are welcome.

Contact: Frank Scheffold, Guillermo Pedro Acuna, Ullrich Steiner

New prospects in ARPES for quantum materials

Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) is one of the most powerful techniques to measure the momentum-resolved electronic structure of materials. In the recent years, the development of high brilliance synchrotron facilities, as well as stable laser technology, have allowed new possibilities like micro- and nano-ARPES, in-operando ARPES on tiny devices, as well as versatile time-resolved ARPES to cite a few of them.
This special session is dedicated to review the recent ARPES developments and highlight the most advanced achievements in systems ranging from quantum materials, correlated systems and complex devices. The session will bring together the ARPES research groups and serve to elaborate novel perspectives and collaborative development.

Contact: Claude Monney, Luc Patthey, Felix Baumberger

Nonequilibrium properties of quantum materials

The development of ultrafast laser techniques and pump-probe experiments has enabled studies of the nonequilibrium properties of materials on the intrinsic timescales of the charge, spin, orbital and lattice degrees of freedom. Such experiments allow to disentangle competing or cooperative effects along the time axis, and to access metastable states with novel properties. Also, on the theory side, this research field is currently very active with the development of theoretical concepts and computational techniques which enable a description of nonequilibrium phenomena in interacting lattice systems. The ultimate goal in the field is the control of material properties on ultrafast timescales, and the realization of new devices which exploit nonequilibrium states of matter.
This session will bring together experts from the experimental and theoretical sides to stimulate discussions and an exchange of recent insights and ideas. The invited speakers will provide an overview of recent achievements and emerging techniques, while the contributed talks will present recent activities of the respective research groups.

Contact: Claude Monney, Philipp Werner

Swiss Neutron Science on the European Scale

The Swiss spallation neutron source SINQ at Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) is celebrating 25 years of user operation, and recently underwent a major upgrade program. PSI’s ultra-cold neutron (UCN) source remains the most-powerful UCN source. Together, they enable a growing number of leading experiments in fields ranging from particle physics to quantum matter science, to applied and functional materials. In addition, Switzerland, and the Swiss neutron science community are deeply engaged on the European neutron landscape with investments at the world-wide most powerful reactor-based neutron source at the Institute Laue Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble and the European Spallation Source (ESS) under construction in Lund, which will become Europe’s new flagship facility. The Swiss Neutron Science Society invites abstracts from the growing user-base of these facilities to share their research. Abstract submissions are welcome from all topics where neutron experiments have contributed, or may contribute in the future.

Contact: Fundamental Physics: Florian Piegsa, Hard Condensed Matter and Quantum Materials: Daniel Mazzone, Applied and Functional Materials: Markus Strobl, General requests: Marc Janoschek