Max Planck Society

Max Planck Society

The Max Planck Society is a leading research organization for fundamental research in Germany. It consists of 84 institutes, employs over 14,000 scientists, and is consistently ranked in the top 3 in the Nature index of research output. The University of Stuttgart with 4.800 employees and about 23000 registered students is a strong research-oriented institution with a main emphasis on engineering and natural sciences that was successful in the recent “Excellence Initiative” sponsored by the German government.The Micro Nano and Molecular Systems Lab at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (https://pf.is.mpg.de/) and the Liquid Crystals and Soft Matter Lab at the University of Stuttgart (https://www.ipc.uni-stuttgart.de/giesselmann/) have a proven track record in the development of microswimmers, soft microrobotic systems, novel fabrication methods, soft matter research in general, and liquid crystal systems in particular.

https://www.mpg.de/en

Principal investigator

Peer Fischer is a Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Stuttgart and he heads the independent Micro Nano and Molecular Systems Lab at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. He received a BSc. degree in Physics from Imperial College London and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. He was a NATO (DAAD) Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University, before joining the Rowland Institute at Harvard. At Harvard he held a Rowland Fellowship and directed an interdisciplinary research lab for five years. In 2009 he received an Attract Award from the Fraunhofer Society which led him to set up a photonics lab at the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques in Freiburg. In 2011 he moved his lab to the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, and since 2013 he is a Professor at the University of Stuttgart. Peer Fischer won an ERC Grant as a consolidator in 2011 and in 2016 he won a World Technology Award. He received an ERC Advanced Grant in 2018. He is a member of the Max Planck – EPFL Center for Molecular Nanoscience and Technology. Peer Fischer is a Founding Editorial Board Member of the journal AAAS Science Robotics and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Professor Fischer has broad research interests including 3d nanofabrication & assembly, micro- and nano-robotics, active matter, interaction of optical, electric, magnetic, and acoustic fields with matter at small length scales, chirality, and molecular systems engineering.

Key personnel