Campus English Garden

A new campus for physics: Previously dispersed over various locations, almost all facilities of the LMU Faculty of Physics are to be brought together at English Garden.

The new site will encompass everything from nanotechnology, meteorology, and didactics to solid-state and theoretical physics at the Arnold Sommerfeld Center, to quantum physics, biophysics, statistical physics, astrophysics, and particle physics – and rounded off by a lecture building with library and cafeteria.

The opportunity to unite the Faculty of Physics in one place arose because the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, which was founded in the English Garden as a veterinary school (“Tierarzneischule”) in 1790, has been moving in stages to the far more spacious Campus Oberschleissheim.

Situated to the east of the English Garden is the institute building complex at Oettingenstrasse, which is home to facilities such as the Geschwister Scholl Institute of Political Science and the Japan Center.

Nano-Institute

Inaugurated in 2019, LMU’s Nano-Institute planted a flag for the new state-of-the-art physics campus at English Garden. Researchers at the institute are seeking ways of making energy supply more sustainable and efficient, as current wind and solar plants are often beset by transport and storage problems. To this end, the scientists are researching customized nanostructures for sustainable solar energy conversion.

With a floor space of around 2,700 square meters, the laboratories of the new building face the street while its offices face the English Garden. The centerpiece is a multi-story atrium with congregation areas laid out in a cascading design for dynamic communication and exchange.

Nano-Institute of Faculty of Physics in Königinstrasse at English Garden
© LMU

Light under Control

News from the Nano-Institute

At the Nano-Institute, physicist Stefan Maier studies the interactions of light with matter on nanometer scales. Using nanostructures, he tries to control nano-processes and increase the efficiency of energy conversion.

Buildings in planning phase

Buildings
Experimental Physics I
Experimental Physics II
Theoretical Physics
Forum of Physics and Meteorology
Astrophysics and Particle Physics
Central building with lecture and seminar rooms and library

University Observatory Munich / Wendelstein Observatory

The University Observatory Munich, featuring the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, is located on Schreinerstrasse in the Munich district of Bogenhausen. Since its foundation in 1816, the observatory has been one of the most renowned institutions of its kind in Germany, not least owing to its cutting-edge measurement and observation instruments. This includes the refractor developed in 1835 by the celebrated physicist and optician Joseph von Fraunhofer – a groundbreaking innovation at the time, now a museum exhibit. Today’s observatory sits atop 1,845-meter-high Mount Wendelstein in the Bavarian Alps, where LMU operates – among other equipment – the largest telescope in Germany, with a principal mirror measuring two meters in diameter and a focal length of 15,000 millimeters. The telescope supports research projects involving large telescopes and special survey telescopes. With two optical filters and one infrared filter, moreover, the telescope’s camera allows astronomers to obtain not only structural data, but also additional color information.

The Wendelstein Observatory of the LMU Institute of Astronomy and Astophysics is located on the summit of the Wendelstein in the Bavarian Alps
© Andreas Leder

Physics location in Garching

LMU’s Faculty of Physics also has a presence on the research campus in Garching in the north of Munich, with the Chairs of Attosecond Physics, Elementary Particle Physics, and Medical Physics as well as the Centre for Advanced Laser Applications (CALA) and the Laboratory for Extreme Photonics (LEX Photonics). On the campus, LMU cooperates closely with scientific and technological research institutions of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) along with institutes of the Max Planck Society, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the European Southern Observatory, and numerous other renowned institutes and enterprises – from basic research to the development of viable applications.