[2009-05-26] START-awardee Hartmut Häffner has moved to the University of California, Berkeley, USA. Häffner worked in the research group led by Rainer Blatt at the Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Innsbruck and at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI), and he is one of the masterminds who for the first time worldwide accomplished teleportation with atoms and realized a quantum byte.
Hartmut Häffner has already worked as Assistant Professor for Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics at the University of California, Berkeley, USA since January. At the moment he is in Austria finishing his research work at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) in Innsbruck. ?Hartmut Häffner was a member of my research group for seven years and he has considerably contributed to our success in the last few years?, says Prof. Rainer Blatt. ?His appointment in California is also a commendation for Tyrolean research.? Häffner is excited about his new research institution: ?We have really good students, an excellent research environment and a flexible managment.? Nevertheless, there is also some feeling of regret in his move from Innsbruck to the USA as he has to give up the START-project, which he was granted in 2006.
From the Tyrol to California
Häffner speaks very highly of research funding by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): ?It is fast, flexible and performance-oriented. The Austrian universities can still learn something from this institution?, says Häffner. This also applies to how junior researchers are treated: ?While junior researchers applying for a post are still treated as mere supplicants in Europe, I was welcomed with open arms in the USA?, stresses the quantum physicist, for whom the U.S. was not the first choice thinking back to his first research experience as a guest researcher near Washington DC. ?But life and the people at the west coast are very different in comparison to the east. The quality of life in California is very similar to the Tyrol.? Hartmut Häffner is taking one of his research projects and part of his team with him to Berkeley to be able to continue his research work successfully from the beginning in this highly competitive field of science. Häffner not only moves for professional but also for personal reasons as he follows his partner, who has worked as a biologist at Berkley for some time.START-awardee 2006
Hartmut Häffner was born in Mainz, Germany in 1970, where he majored in physics at the Johannes Gutenberg University. After he received his PhD in 2000, he went to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, USA, where he worked as a guest researcher in the research group of Nobel laureate William D. Phillips. From 2001 to 2004 Häffner worked as a university assistant in the research group of Rainer Blatt at the Institute for Experimental Physics of the University of Innsbruck and in October 2004 he started his research as senior scientist at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Innsbruck. In 2006 Hartmut Häffner was awarded the START-prize, the most prestigious Austrian award for junior scientists.