Professor Dr Klaus Blaum from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg receives the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation (DFG) for his precision measurements of natural constants and symmetries using ions in electromagnetic traps.
Klaus Blaum's research is characterised by his passion for precision. The physicist aims to determine fundamental physical constants more precisely, understand symmetries and forces of nature more precisely and put the standard model of particle physics to the test experimentally. To do this, he traps individual ions in a superposition of electric and magnetic fields and measures their properties, for example their masses and magnetic moments. He achieved groundbreaking results in the investigation of the differences between matter and antimatter, including the most precise comparison of the charge-to-mass ratio of protons and antiprotons. Blaum also made important contributions to atomic physics: for example, he was able to test and confirm theoretical predictions for the magnetic moment of an electron in a hydrogen-like tin ion with unrivalled accuracy. In such an ion, an electron experiences an extremely strong electric field. He also carried out the world's most precise measurement of the maximum energy released in the radioactive decay of holmium 163 - a significant result for global attempts to determine the absolute mass of neutrinos.
Klaus Blaum studied physics at the University of Mainz, where he also obtained his doctorate. From 2000, he worked as a research assistant at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva, Switzerland. In 2004, he then headed a Helmholtz Young Investigators Group at the University of Mainz, where he was habilitated in 2006. A year later, he was appointed director at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg and has been teaching as an honorary professor at Heidelberg University since 2008. Blaum has twice received an ERC Advanced Grant (2011, 2019) and, among other awards, the Stern-Gerlach Medal from the German Physical Society (2025) and the Lise Meitner Prize from the European Physical Society (2020). He is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
The Leibniz Prize has been awarded annually by the DFG since 1986. Of the ten prize winners, three come from the humanities and social sciences, two from the life sciences, three from the natural sciences and two from engineering. Each winner receives prize money of €2.5 million. They can use these funds for their research work for up to seven years as they see fit and without any bureaucratic hassle. The Leibniz Prizes will be presented at a ceremony in Berlin on 18 March 2026.
Division 'Stored and Cooled Ions' (Klaus Blaum) at MPIK
