Established in 1946 Jožef Stefan Institute is the leading Slovenian scientific research institute, covering a broad spectrum of basic and applied research. The staff of about 1050 specializes in natural sciences, life sciences and engineering. The subjects concern production and control technologies, communication and computer technologies, knowledge technologies, biotechnologies, new materials, environmental technologies, nanotechnologies, and nuclear engineering. The mission of the Jožef Stefan Institute is the accumulation - and dissemination - of knowledge at the frontiers of natural science and technology to the benefit of society at large through the pursuit of education, learning, research, and development of high technology at the highest international levels of excellence.

Dynamics of complex nano-systems group at Department for Complex Matter F7
The main subject of the research within the group are complex nano-systems, focusing on nonequilibrium dynamics of new and existing nano-materials, nonperiodic inhomogeneous matter, as well as the relations between their dynamic properties and function. The group is rather small and diverse, but has achieved cyclical breakthroughs by relying on original approaches and an affinity for tackling risky ideas. Sometimes, as in the case of real-time investigations of electronic superconducting, structural and magnetic phase transitions using novel femtosecond optical techniques that began in the late 1990s, and more recently the discovery of metastable hidden states in 1T-TaS2 in 2014. In the recent cycle of our activities, we have focused on metastable states created in the aftermath of phase transitions that have led to the discovery of new fundamental physics, like the quantum jamming phenomenon and development of novel quantum memory devices.