Summary: Home to the Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology (IQUIST) center and strong superconducting-qubit/precision-measurement groups; excellent cleanroom (Holonyak Micro and Nanotechnology Lab).
Notes: Very affordable cost of living relative to research output; strong engineering-physics crossover for sensing hardware.
Warnings: Urbana-Champaign is a small college town with limited non-university amenities and a long drive to a major airport.
Studies photophysics and photochemistry of plasmonic nanomaterials using single-particle optical imaging and ultrafast spectroscopy, with applications to solar energy conversion.
Studies active galactic nuclei, supermassive black hole binaries, and time-domain phenomena using large optical/IR spectroscopic and imaging surveys.
Directs the Laboratory for Astronomical Imaging; develops millimeter/submillimeter interferometric imaging instrumentation (e.g., for ALMA) and studies star and protoplanetary disk formation.
Works in quantum optics and AMO physics: generation, characterization, and engineering of photonic quantum states, atomic and solid-state quantum memories, single-photon-level atomic/molecular spectroscopy, and optical magnetometry for quantum sensing; leads UIUC's public quantum network project.
Observational astronomer studying time-domain astrophysics and transients (supernovae) using wide-field surveys and follow-up instrumentation.
Pioneer of single-molecule/single-nanoparticle surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and quantum-dot bioconjugate imaging; develops nanoparticle probes for ultrasensitive molecular detection and in vivo tumor imaging.
Studies quantum optics and quantum information with superconducting and hybrid quantum circuits, focusing on modular quantum computing architectures, microwave-to-optical photon transduction, and quantum error mitigation.
Develops and applies single-molecule fluorescence super-resolution imaging (including FIONA, nanometer-accuracy localization) to study the structure and dynamics of molecular motors (myosins, kinesins, dyneins) and other biological macromolecules.
Studies quasars and supermassive black hole growth via reverberation mapping and large time-domain spectroscopic/photometric surveys.
Develops compact, bright semiconductor quantum dot probes for single-molecule and single-particle live-cell imaging, and photonic-crystal-enhanced single-quantum-dot digital biosensing (with B. Cunningham).