Rao's group uses ultrafast (sub-20 fs) transient absorption and vibronic spectroscopy to study quantum-coherent energy and charge transfer processes in molecular and nanoscale semiconductor systems, most notably the quantum-coherent mechanism of singlet exciton fission, with applications to next-generation photovoltaics.
Rentschler's group synthesizes and characterizes molecular magnetic materials: single-molecule magnets, spin-crossover complexes and polynuclear coordination clusters, with magnetic anisotropy engineered through ligand-field design and characterized by SQUID magnetometry, EPR and ab-initio calculations. The overlap with this search is the molecular-qubit angle -- these are the same chemical objects being pursued elsewhere as optically or electrically addressable spin qubits and as molecular quantum sensors. Relative to the established NV-ensemble quantum-sensing playbook (DEER, nanoscale NMR, T1 relaxometry at pT/sqrt(Hz) ensemble sensitivity), the value here is chemical: designed spin systems with tunable coherence and anisotropy, rather than defects in a host crystal. Borderline-strong inclusion; the group is chemistry-first, so a physicist postdoc would bring the spin-readout side.
Sapienza studies light propagation and control in complex/disordered nanophotonic media, using wavefront shaping and transmission-matrix approaches to focus and image through scattering media, with applications to deep-tissue fluorescence imaging and nanophotonic light sources.
Scholes uses multidimensional ultrafast and coherence spectroscopies to probe wavepacket dynamics and quantum-mechanical phenomena in photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes, cavity QED, and photo-activated chemistry, including his group's resolution of a decade-long controversy over long-lived coherent coupling in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson complex. His current work extends coherence spectroscopy to quantum information science and photobiomodulation, squarely fitting the fundamental light-physics/quantum-optics side of the filter.
Smith runs Melbourne's time-resolved fluorescence facility and specialises in the information channels most people throw away: fluorescence lifetime, anisotropy decay and its orientational content, and single-molecule photophysics, applied to organic semiconductors, energy-transfer systems and biological samples. The group builds its own confocal microspectroscopy instrumentation for time-resolved anisotropy imaging and single-molecule detection. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — lifetime- and orientation-resolved fluorescence is the principal orthogonal contrast mechanism to spin-based sensing, and his instrumentation is the natural correlative partner for NV-ensemble DEER/relaxometry experiments at pT/sqrt(Hz) that need an independent optical readout of the same specimen. Preferred attribute present: orientation- and lifetime-resolved methods.
Sokolov develops femtosecond adaptive spectroscopic techniques for coherent Raman (FAST CARS), broadband stochastic laser fields, and quantum-light probes of molecular coherence for standoff chemical/biological sensing and label-free imaging. In the broader landscape of NV-centre ensemble quantum sensing (DEER, nano-NMR, T1 relaxometry) operating near pT/sqrt(Hz) sensitivity, this work contributes ultrafast coherent-Raman methodology adjacent to spin-based sensing.
Develops single-cell and mass-spectrometry imaging technologies to discover and map neuropeptides and other small-molecule signaling agents involved in cell-cell communication.
Tempelaar develops theory and simulation methods (surface-hopping and vibronic exciton models) for two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy, explaining how vibronic coupling sustains excitonic coherence in photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes such as the Fenna-Matthews-Olson complex and LH2, and extending these ideas to singlet fission and organic-semiconductor aggregates. He is a faculty affiliate of Northwestern's Institute for Quantum Information Research and Engineering (INQUIRE).
Tilley directs the UNSW Electron Microscope Unit and runs a nanomaterials group whose distinctive capability is in-situ liquid-cell TEM: watching nanoparticle nucleation, growth and catalytic transformation in real time inside the microscope, in liquid, rather than inferring mechanism from before-and-after snapshots. The synthetic side produces magnetic and plasmonic nanoparticles used as biosensor labels and MRI contrast agents, largely in collaboration with Gooding and Reece. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — the group is a supplier and characteriser of the nanoparticle probes that in-cell quantum sensing depends on — including the magnetic-nanoparticle labels whose stray fields a pT/sqrt(Hz) NV sensor would actually detect — and the liquid-cell TEM capability is a rare way to validate what those particles are doing in situ. Borderline inclusion (materials characterisation rather than sensing), kept for the collaborative infrastructure it represents.
Uses ultrafast multidimensional spectroscopy to study structural dynamics of biomolecules. Directions: (1) 2D IR spectroscopy of protein folding, water dynamics, and membrane systems with sub-100-fs time resolution; (2) single-molecule FRET for resolving conformational heterogeneity in proteins and nucleic acids; (3) development of ultrafast mid-IR laser sources and pulse shaping for 2D spectroscopy. Resolves dynamics inaccessible to other methods.