• Skip to Management
  • Skip to Main menu
  • Skip to Page content
Adlershof Logo
  • WISTA
  • WISTA.Plan
  • WISTA.Service
WISTA direkt
Search
  • de
  • en
  • Adlershof Logo
  • About / Directory
    • Companies / Institutes
    • Science City in numbers
    • Direction / Maps
      • Bus / Train
      • By Car
      • Bicycle
      • Orientation / Maps
      • Trail of Thoughts
  • Newsroom
    • Overview
    • News
      • Social Media Stream
      • Success Stories
    • Events / Calendar
      • Adlershof Dissertation Award
      • Adlershof Research Forum
      • Long Night of Sciences Berlin
    • Adlershof Journal
    • Hot Topics
      • Adlershof Mission "Grand Challenges"
      • Circular Economy
      • Digital infra­structure / 5G campus network
    • Photos / Flyer / Downloads
      • Magazine archive
    • WISTA-Editorial Staff
  • Science / Technology
    • Overview
    • Technology Centres
      • Photonics / Optics
      • Biotech­nology / Envi­ron­ment
      • Micro­systems / Materi­als
      • IT / Media
      • Renewable Energy / Photovoltaics
    • Non-university Research
    • Universities / Colleges
      • Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
      • Services for Students
    • Young Talents / STEM / School Labs
    • Start-Ups
      • Adlershof Start-Up Centre IGZ
      • Adlershof Founder’s Lab
    • Networks / Management
      • Campus Club Adlershof
  • TV / Media
    • TV and Movie Production
    • Media Services / Companies
    • News and Events
    • Filming Locations
    • Costume Hire
    • GDR Film Archive
    • Tickets / Booking
  • Properties
    • Overview
    • Real Estate Rent
      • Office Space / Workspace / Laboratories
    • Real Estate Offers
      • Commercial Properties
    • ST3AM Working Environments / Coworking
    • Residential
    • Construction
      • Building Projects
      • Architecture
      • Webcam
  • Service
    • Overview
    • Gastronomy / Sport / Culture / Shopping
    • Jobs / Market
    • Social and Healthcare Facilities
    • WISTA-Business Services
    • Event Services / Guided Tours / Hotels
    • Facility Management
    • Downloads / Photos / Videos
    • Jobs for Refugees
  • Hood
    • Overview
    • History
    • Nature Park
    • Culture
    • Technology Park
    • Digital Tours
  • WISTA
  • WISTA.Plan
  • WISTA.Service
WISTA direkt

News

  • Overview
  • News
  • Events / Calendar
  • Adlershof Journal
  • Hot Topics
  • Photos / Flyer / Downloads
  • WISTA-Editorial Staff
  • Adlershof
  • Newsroom
  • News
16. January 2023

The earth surveyor

Christian Freier works on quantum sensors in Adlershof

Christian Freier © WISTA Management GmbH
The Adlershof spin tower, a technical innovation at the time, fascinates physicist Christian Freier © WISTA Management GmbH

A German, an American, an Australian. And an idea that equally fascinated the three of them. It was about basic research in physics, which, in this case, was to create a then-novel measurement procedure based on using laser-cooled atoms and make it ready for the market and its use in people’s everyday life.

The trio was brought together at the Australian National University in Canberra purely by coincidence. Although they had seen the world, this was still the other side of it when viewed from Adlershof. They were nomads. That’s how they saw themselves. A fact that was also to be reflected by the name of the company that they birthed in Australia in late 2019: “Nomad Atomics”.

“It was important to us to have a presence in Europe and Berlin was a logical choice for us,” says Christian Freier, the German in the founder’s trio. He returned and moved into an office in the Innovation and Start-up Centre (IGZ) on Rudower Chaussee in mid-2020. He knew his way around from his time as a PhD student in Adlershof. From Alt-Treptow, where he has lived since then, it takes him half an hour by bike to get to it.

Nomad Atomics GmbH, the German branch of the Australian parent company, was founded in September 2021. “I am the only full-time employee,” says Freier. “We are working on expanding the team.” By the end of 2023, laboratory operations should pick up in Adlershof.

The now 38-year-old has had a penchant for nomadism his entire life. As a young child, he moved from the remotest part of Germany’s southwest to the northeast of the republic, from Blieskastel in Saarland to Plau am See. He completed his alternative civilian service in Berlin in 2003 and enrolled – “I have always been interested in physics and looked at the stars with a telescope as a child” – at Technische Universität Berlin.

After graduating, he went to Calgary in Western Canada as an exchange student, where he met his wife, a Canadian from Nova Scotia, one of the Atlantic provinces. His final thesis as well as his PhD thesis at Humboldt-University Berlin led Freier to the research area that was to become his scientific home, atom interferometry. It makes use of the “quantum nature of cold atoms”, says Freier, to determine their acceleration and other environmental influences. Among other things, the method makes it possible to measure the earth’s gravitational field.

Exploring rock structures under the earth's surface, monitoring groundwater levels, navigating the high seas – the method does all this with a precision and reliability that none of the conventional measuring methods can match. Atom interferometry provides us with data on the verge of the immeasurable and beyond the perceptible, says Freier, for example, on the force of attraction between two 70-kilogram bodies with a distance of one metre between them.

Quantum sensors working according to this principle are currently only available for laboratory use. “They are still made up of several components and are relatively bulky,” says Freier. “The result of our innovation will be to integrate all this into one compact and easy-to-use unit.” A user-friendly device like this would have numerous applications, including in mining, transportation, and environmental protection. According to Freier, it would also be conceivable in the future “to install a small quantum sensor into cars, which supports the navigation system in places where GPS signals are unavailable or unreliable”.

Dr. Winfried Dolderer for Adlershof Journal

  • Nomad Atomics
Adlershof Journal Start-ups Analytics IT / Media Biotechnology / Environment

Related News

Cover Adlershof Journal January/February 2023

Adlershof Journal January/February 2023

Back to the Future – The next chapter

Related Institutions

  • Nomad Atomics GmbH
  • LinkedInshare0
  • Facebookshare0
  • WhatsAppshare0
  • E-Mail

The development of the Science and Technology Park Berlin Adlershof was and is co-financed by the European Union namely by EFRE. This concerns infrastructure development like construction of technology centres. Furthermore EFRE is used for international projects.

  • © WISTA Management GmbH
  • Legal Notice
  • Privacy Policy
  • Social Media Guide
  • FAQ
  • Contact
  • Press
  • Newsletter
  • RSS
  • International
Member of:
Zukunftsort Adlershof Logo