Summary: Kasevich group pioneered atom-interferometric gravimeters and the 10-meter atomic fountain; strong overlap between physics, applied physics, and SLAC for precision tests of gravity.
Notes: Well-funded, close collaboration with SLAC and Ginzton Laboratory; large postdoc community in the Bay Area quantum ecosystem.
Warnings: Extremely high cost of living; housing near campus is very tight even with postdoc housing programs.
Kapitulnik combines cryogenic scanning-SQUID and Sagnac magneto-optic Kerr microscopy of unconventional and topological superconductors with high-precision torsion-balance experiments that test Newtonian gravity at short range and search for exotic spin-dependent forces, spanning table-top tests of fundamental physics and quantum materials characterization.
Kasevich is a pioneer of light-pulse atom interferometry, building cold-atom sensors of rotation, acceleration, and gravity that rival or exceed classical inertial instruments, and precision tests of general relativity and searches for dark matter and gravitational waves via large-scale atom interferometers (including MAGIS-100). His 2022 Nature paper demonstrated distributed quantum sensing with mode-entangled, spin-squeezed atomic states, extending entanglement-enhanced metrology to networks of separated sensors.
Kuo develops and deploys TES bolometer arrays and SQUID-multiplexed readout electronics for cosmic microwave background polarization experiments (BICEP/Keck, South Pole Telescope, CMB-S4), pairing quantum-limited cryogenic sensor design with cosmology to search for inflationary gravitational-wave signatures.
Lantz designs and characterizes the active seismic isolation and suspension control systems that let LIGO's kilometer-scale interferometers reach the sensitivities needed to detect gravitational waves, working on the classical-noise-suppression side of a fundamentally quantum-limited instrument.
Mabuchi's group studies continuous quantum measurement and feedback in cavity-QED and photonic circuit platforms, developing the theory and hardware for real-time quantum-limited monitoring and control of light-matter systems, foundational to many quantum-sensing readout schemes.
Nobel laureate W. E. Moerner, who first detected and studied single molecules optically, now develops engineered point-spread-function and orientation-resolved single-molecule localization microscopy methods to track individual biomolecules and their rotational dynamics in cells with nanometer precision, well beyond the optical diffraction limit.
Moler's lab builds scanning SQUID microscopes -- magnetic-flux sensors cooled to cryogenic temperatures and scanned within microns of a sample -- to image supercurrents, vortices, and interfacial magnetism in unconventional superconductors and topological materials with sensitivity and spatial resolution that complements ensemble NV-diamond magnetometry (which reaches pT/âHz via DEER/T1-type protocols) at a very different length and field scale.
Safavi-Naeini's group engineers nanoscale optomechanical and electromechanical devices -- phononic-crystal membranes and superconducting-circuit-coupled resonators -- for quantum-limited force and displacement sensing and for coherent microwave-to-optical quantum transduction linking superconducting qubits to photonic quantum networks.
Schleier-Smith's group uses optical-cavity-mediated interactions to entangle and spin-squeeze ensembles of trapped neutral atoms, generating metrologically useful entangled states for quantum-enhanced sensing, and is developing modular, networked atom-cavity systems as building blocks for distributed quantum sensor arrays and simulators.
Schnitzer's lab invents miniaturized and fiber-based two-photon microscopes and voltage/calcium imaging methods that allow single-cell-resolution recording of neural activity in freely behaving animals, including recent wide-field fluorescence-lifetime voltage imaging developed with the Kasevich group for high-throughput readout of neuronal spiking.