Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF

Undergraduate and doctoral students studying and conducting research in the field of physics with a special interest in photonics in Europe. 

If you do not belong to neither of these groups, please contact us directly by email. We will then inform you personally about possible participation.

Participation is free of charge. Registration is required, for certain program items you have to apply in the registration form.

Registration is open from end of July 2026.

If you are not able to attend after successful registration, please send an email until September 2026. Otherwise, we will have to charge you­ 50 EUR for the catering costs.

This year's Photonics Day will take place on September 15, 2026. The venues will be at Fraunhofer IOF and directly adjacent Abbe Center of Photonics (ACP) at Beutenberg Campus Jena.

Participants in the Photonics Days Jena can generally expect a full program of different formats.

Your days will be filled with lectures by our research scientists as well as renowned professors and Nobel Prize winners, workshops on various aspects of your research career, lab tours through the Fraunhofer IOF laboratories, showrooms, a career brunch with industry representatives, and, above all, networking opportunities. Over the years, we have also been able to offer hackathons or escape room games.

You can find more information about last year's program here.

The event aims to offer young researchers in the key technologies of optics and photonics direct future prospects in Thuringia and Germany as a business/industrial location. The Jena region and Germany offer students enormous potential to drive forward innovative and pioneering developments through their own research.

For this reason, the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF, in cooperation with the Max Planck School of Photonics, organizes the annual "Photonics Days Jena" as a networking and career event.