Tan leads the Superconducting Quantum Detectors group, holding ERC Starting and Consolidator Grants. Two main research pillars: (1) Quantum-limited SIS mixer development — pushing THz SIS heterodyne receivers above the Nb gap (~700 GHz) using NbTiN/NbN films for next-generation ALMA wideband sensitivity upgrade (Band 9) and large-format focal-plane mixer arrays for JCMT/SMA; (2) Superconducting parametric amplifiers (TWPAs) — fabricating kinetic-inductance and Josephson-junction TWPAs achieving near-quantum-limited broadband noise performance from microwave to THz, with applications to dark matter/axion searches (ABRACADABRA/prototype cavity haloscope), quantum computing qubit readout, and CMB-grade receivers. Group is transitioning TWPA fabrication in-house using Beecroft Building cleanroom. ERC Consolidator Grant awarded 2024.
Builds radio and mm-wave quantum-limited sensing instruments for high-energy astrophysics and cosmology. Directions: (1) PUEO — balloon-borne radio Cherenkov (Askaryan) detector for ultra-high-energy cosmogenic neutrinos; (2) RNO-G — ground-based radio neutrino array at Summit Station, Greenland; (3) UHE cosmic ray radio detection methodology; (4) CMB instrumentation (BICEP/Keck, SPT, CMB-S4). 2025 APS Fellow; 2022 Moore EPII award. Director KICP.
Experimental astroparticle physicist developing radio-based detection of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. Directions: (1) HAWC — high-altitude water Cherenkov detector for gamma-ray and cosmic ray sensing; (2) IceTop surface array at IceCube for cosmic ray composition at the knee; (3) radio detection of cosmic-ray-induced air showers (Askaryan emission) as a technique for large-scale UHE cosmic ray sensing. Enrico Fermi Institute member.
Webster works on the Epoch of Reionisation with the Murchison Widefield Array, where the science goal — detecting the redshifted 21-cm signal from the first stars — is a five-orders-of-magnitude foreground-subtraction and instrumental-calibration problem rather than an astrophysics problem. Her group's contributions are in foreground modelling, ionospheric and beam calibration, and the statistical detection of a signal buried far below the systematics floor; she also works on quasar accretion physics. 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 methodological parallel is exact: like a pT/sqrt(Hz) NV ensemble measurement, a 21-cm detection lives or dies on the control of correlated systematics rather than on raw sensitivity. Borderline inclusion under the astronomy criterion, kept because the array and its calibration are the central object of study.
Yang works on the systems-level physics of silicon spin qubits: operating qubits at elevated temperatures (above one kelvin, where cryo-CMOS control electronics can be co-integrated), valley and spin-orbit engineering, and the electrical control of spin qubits without micromagnets. The 'hot qubit' programme in particular is an engineering argument about where the classical/quantum boundary should sit in a real machine. 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 — raising the operating temperature of a spin sensor while preserving coherence is the same trade a pT/sqrt(Hz) NV ensemble makes implicitly by working at room temperature; Yang's work is the silicon community's attempt to buy back some of that convenience. Borderline inclusion — this is quantum computing rather than sensing — retained under the inclusive rubric.