Fyzikální ústav AV ČR (FZÚ; or Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, http://www.fzu.cz) is a public research institution specialising in fundamental and applied physics. With more than 700 scientists, one third of them international, it is the largest institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. The institute is organised into six divisions according to subject: elementary particle physics, condensed matter physics, solid state physics, optics, plasma physics and laser physics. Today, several of its laboratories are nodes in programmes of European Community, and its research groups participate in large international collaborations (e.g. the Cherenkov Telescope Array, the Pierre Auger Observatory, the Telescope Array, and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope), and in the work of international research centers all over the word (CERN, Fermilab, Elletra Sincrotrone Trieste, European Spallation Source Lund, STFC, and many others). A number of major international conferences, workshops and schools organized and co-organized by the institute has already brought thousands of international experts to the Czech Republic. To name just a few recent ones: Towards CP Violation in Neutrino Physics, ICN+T, Frontiers of Quantum and Mesoscopic Thermodynamics, Ad-Hoc workshops on the crystallographic computing system Jana, Gravity@Prague 2018 Advanced School, International Workshop on Topological Structures in Ferroic Materials (TOPO 2019), International Conference of Ferromagnetic Shape Memory Alloys 2019.

The Department of Dielectrics at the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences (FZU) focuses on investigations of structure-property relations in substances for which the frequency dependence of dielectric function can be probed by capacitance, waveguide or optical techniques. Typical materials of interest are high-permittivity insulators like liquid crystals, ferroelectrics, multiferroics, piezoelectrics, but also nanostructured semiconductors and low-loss materials. Experimental research in the Department of Dielectrics is mostly based on dielectric, infrared, time-domain THz, Raman and neutron spectroscopy, nonlinear optics and scanning probe microscopy measurements. In the TSAR project, the team will mostly contribute by time-domain THz spectroscopy, Raman polarimetry as well as by theoretical modeling of topological defects in antiferroelectric materials.