Professor Francesca Ferlaino gave iGlobenews an exclusive interview and tour of IQOQI. She is a world famous quantum physicist and a champion of women in physics and the STEM areas. She has received numerous prizes and grants and is Austria’s 2025 Scientist of the Year.
Frances Mautner Markhof and Diana Mautner Markhof
15 April 2026
Professor Francesca Ferlaino, an Italian native, came to Innsbruck 20 years ago. She is outgoing and very happy to highlight the research of IQOQI (Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information). IQOQI is located in the idyllic city of Innsbruck, surrounded by the Austrian Alps, a big plus for an avid skier like Francesca Ferlaino. In addition to being Scientific Director at IQOQI, she is a professor at the University of Innsbruck and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in quantum physics.
She was awarded Scientist of the Year 2025 by the Austrian Association of Education and Science Journalists. Other prizes she has received include: Austrian of the Year – Research 2024, Grete Rehor State Prize 2023, Cardinal Innitzer Prize for Natural Sciences 2021 and the Erwin Schrödinger Prize 2017. In addition, she is a Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a Triple ERC (European Research Council) Grant Recipient.
She spent her formative years with little mathematics or science training. Having grown up in Naples, nothing prepared her for a life-changing experience at the age of 12, when she visited a French nuclear power plant. She was fascinated by the thought of atoms splitting and producing unimaginable bursts of energy. This fascination never left her and the rest, so to speak, is history.
Her research team at IQOQI focuses on ultracold dipolar quantum gases – systems in which magnetic atoms interact at temperatures near absolute zero. These experiments allow the study of quantum phenomena such as superfluidity, Bose-Einstein condensation, and supersolidity under well-controlled conditions.
In 2012, the group she leads created the first Bose-Einstein condensate of the element erbium (Er) and shortly thereafter the first degenerate Fermi gases. Think of this Bose-Einstein condensate as a “super-atom” where all the particles march in perfect step. Atoms are usually interacting and experiencing internal transitions. But when cooled to nearly absolute zero, they lose their individual identities and begin to act as a single, synchronized quantum wave.
With this system, Ferlaino and her team have explored many-body and few-body dipolar effects, such as the long-awaited observation of an interaction-driven deformation of the Fermi surface and the complex spectra of scattering resonances, which are dominated by the anisotropy of the interactions.
Most quantum experiments use atoms that only interact when they physically “touch” (like billiard balls). Ferlaino’s team uses Erbium and Dysprosium (a rare earth metal), which are “dipolar.” This means that every atom acts like a tiny bar magnet. Because magnets can attract or repel each other from a distance, these atoms “feel” each other even when they are not physically touching. This leads to long-range interactions that are much more complex than standard physics.
By mixing two different magnetic elements (Er and Dy), Professor Ferlaino has created a quantum “LEGO set.” Since each element has different magnetic strengths and properties, her team can now build and study exotic states of matter that do not exist in nature, helping to understand the fundamental rules of how the universe is held together at its most basic level. Ferlaino’s group has also performed experiments on a single ion, an astonishing feat.
By combining for the first time two strongly magnetic elements, erbium (Er) and dysprosium (Dy), Ferlaino’s team has opened the door to investigations of complex geometry-dependent quantum systems. Her research has contributed to a deeper understanding of strongly correlated quantum systems, with relevance to condensed matter physics, quantum simulation, and astrophysics.
Professor Ferlaino is not only a world-class scientist, but also champions promoting women in the STEM areas. She is committed to strengthening the role of women in physics and co-founded the atom*innen network, an initiative that connects and supports women in the quantum sciences in Austria. She believes that it is important to change the public’s perception of what it means to be a student, researcher or professor in the STEM areas. An early start is important. It is estimated that 70% of future jobs will be in the STEM areas.
Through her work and atomi*nnen, Francesca Ferlaino has shown that the STEM areas are not for males only.
IQOQI Vienna will host a series of events honoring 100 years of the Schrödinger equation in November 2026. At the same time, IQOQI Innsbruck will organize a conference in honor of the 65th birthday of IQOQI Director and quantum physicist Professor Rudi Grimm.
