Physicist Raphael Wittkowski Receives the Alfried Krupp-Förderpreis 2026, Worth €1.1 Million, in the Award’s 40th Anniversary Year

“In its anniversary year, the Alfried Krupp-Förderpreis 2026 honours Prof. Raphael Wittkowski and his ambitious work in the still young field of active soft matter. Raphael Wittkowski has discovered fundamental effects in active soft matter, developed important models and advanced methods in statistical physics,” says Prof. Ursula Gather, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Krupp Foundation. “Thanks to his research, ideas that once seemed utopian and belonged at most to the realm of science fiction have entered the scientific arena, with the aim of establishing new, innovative applications in medicine and technology. The Krupp Foundation is very pleased to support Raphael Wittkowski on his path towards developing autonomous, acoustically driven microsystems and programmable materials, and towards transferring these concepts from theory into application.”

Prof. Dr. Raphael Wittkowski conducts research in the field of active soft matter – a new area at the interface of physics, chemistry, engineering, biology and medicine. His work focuses in particular on microsystems with their own propulsion mechanisms that can be controlled using ultrasound. The aim is to open up new perspectives for applications in medicine and technology.

Active soft matter consists of a liquid or soft material containing embedded active particles that have their own propulsion mechanism. These particles draw energy from their surroundings, convert it into directed motion or forces, and thereby enable novel effects. What makes active soft matter special is that, compared with conventional materials, it can exhibit extraordinary properties. Raphael Wittkowski’s research has helped turn concepts that long seemed inconceivable – such as remotely controlled micro-submarines for targeted drug delivery or programmable materials that autonomously adapt to their environment – into real scientific questions.

Potential Applications of Acoustically Driven Microsystems

The systems studied by Prof. Wittkowski – in particular sound-driven microparticles, micromachines and microrobots – are relevant for visionary applications in medicine and technology. Acoustically driven microsystems offer decisive advantages: ultrasound can penetrate tissue and other materials, the propulsion works in liquids and biological tissue, and activity can be remotely controlled by adjusting sound intensity.

One specific example of Prof. Wittkowski’s work is the study “Ultrasound-driven programmable artificial muscles”, published in Nature in 2025. Together with colleagues, he developed artificial muscles that can be powered and precisely controlled by ultrasound. In the future, such systems could be used as sensitive soft grippers, as programmable deformable tissue patches to support the movement of the heart muscle, or for targeted drug delivery.

Prof. Wittkowski’s group has also developed AcoDyn, the most powerful simulation software to date for acoustically driven microsystems, enabling the most complex simulations of such systems worldwide. This allowed him to predict key properties of these systems and to close an important gap in research. He has also developed a method for steering large numbers of acoustically driven microparticles towards a predefined target. With these advances, Prof. Wittkowski has laid the groundwork for future medical applications of acoustically driven microparticles, for example in transporting drugs to a specific target in the body in order to avoid the disadvantages of systemic drug distribution. If active particles are used in patients in the future, this could help minimise unwanted side effects such as damage to healthy tissue or avoid unnecessarily high drug doses. Conventional chemotherapy is one example: its side effects primarily result from the systemic distribution of drugs throughout the body, which also affects healthy tissue.

Prof. Dr. Raphael Wittkowski

Prof. Dr. Raphael Wittkowski, 38, was appointed to a professorship in the Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science and Natural Sciences at RWTH Aachen University in 2025, where he holds the Chair of the Theory of Active Soft Materials. At the same time, he is a member of the scientific leadership of the DWI – Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials.

Raphael Wittkowski studied physics and mathematics at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. There, he earned his doctorate in physics with a thesis on Brownian dynamics of active and passive anisotropic colloidal particles – that is, the time-dependent motion of particles in a liquid or gas driven by thermal fluctuations and, in the active case, by self-propulsion. He completed both his undergraduate studies and his doctoral work in less than half of the standard time. He spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh with Prof. Dr. Michael Cates, one of the most renowned physicists in the field and now successor to Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking at the University of Cambridge.

Raphael Wittkowski’s contributions to the theory of active soft matter, and in particular to acoustically driven microparticles, are internationally recognised and have established him as a leading scientist in this field. His work has already been honoured with numerous awards and grants, including an EIC Pathfinder grant from the European Innovation Council, funding through the Heisenberg Programme of the German Research Foundation, Emmy Noether funding, and recognition as an “Emerging Leader” by the Editorial Board of the Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter. Raphael Wittkowski’s research is underpinned by an extensive publication record comprising nearly 100 works, including articles in high-ranking journals such as Nature and Physical Review Letters. His publications have been cited 6,000 times. In addition to his research and publications, Raphael Wittkowski is strongly committed to teaching and the promotion of early-career researchers. He offers courses, supervises Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctoral theses, and involves students and staff in active research at an early stage.

Alfried Krupp-Förderpreis

The Alfried Krupp-Förderpreis has been awarded annually since 1986 to young university teachers who hold their first professorship at a German university in the natural sciences or engineering, including medicine. To date, the prize has been awarded to 45 researchers. Endowed with €1.1 million, the award gives recipients freedom in research and teaching: over a period of five years, they can flexibly and independently create an optimal working environment and advance their scientific work. Since 2025, the prize money has for the first time included a lump sum of €150,000 to cover indirect costs, or overhead, incurred by the recipients’ universities.

Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation

The non-profit Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation has supported people and projects in the fields of arts and culture, education, science, health and sports since 1968, committing around €700 million to these purposes to date. As the largest shareholder of today’s thyssenkrupp AG, the Foundation uses the income it receives exclusively for charitable purposes. Through its work, it provides important impetus for the development of science and higher education, aims to promote equal opportunities and seeks to improve the education of younger generations.

Further information:

www.krupp-stiftung.de/wissenschaft/