Die Fakultät für Elektrotechnik, Informatik und Mathematik lädt Sie herzlich am Montag, 23.06., ab 16.15 Uhr zu den Antrittsvorlesungen von Jun.-Prof. Dr. Simone Jablonski (Didaktik der Mathematik) und Prof. Dr.-Ing. Nils Gerhardt (Halbleiter- und Optoelektronische Bauelemente) ein.
Simone Jablonski:
“How much water do all schools in Paderborn use in one day?” So-called Fermi problems are a special form of modelling task: They require learners to work on open-ended problems that initially appear unsolvable. As relevant information is often not directly available, realistic assumptions and estimates have to be made. The aim is to determine an approximate solution, the plausibility of which is then critically reflected upon. The presentation will analyse the potential of Fermi tasks both from a mathematics education research perspective and in the classroom. Key findings from current studies will be presented and practical applications for different school levels will be discussed. In addition, the extent to which Fermi tasks can contribute to the promotion of critical thinking in the context of education for sustainable development is shown.
Nils Gerhardt:
The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence workloads and hyperscale data centers is pushing today’s optical links to their performance limits, creating an urgent need for faster and more energy-efficient laser sources. Conventional semiconductor lasers encode data via intensity modulation but struggle to exceed tens of gigahertz. Spin-lasers overcome this bottleneck by coupling electron and photon spin to enable ultrafast polarization modulation—reaching hundreds of gigahertz—through engineered anisotropies in integrated laser cavities. This makes spin-lasers a highly promising and novel device concept for a wide range of applications, including high-speed optical links, neuromorphic computing, chaos-based random bit generation, and microwave or THz sources. Such applications require fully integrated and electrically controlled devices, the development of which remains a major challenge. In this talk, I will introduce the concept of spin-lasers from fundamentals to applications and discuss how recent advances in magnetic spin injection contacts and hybrid semiconductor integration are now bringing ultrafast electrically driven spin-lasers within reach, opening new frontiers for optoelectronic and photonic innovation.