PIs

Department(s)/lab(s): School of Physics | UNSW Theoretical Atomic Physics Group (Flambaum) @ UNSW
Summary:

Flambaum is one of the most cited atomic theorists alive and the intellectual source of a large fraction of the modern precision-AMO new-physics programme. His group computes the atomic and molecular structure factors that convert an experimental frequency shift into a bound on new physics: enhancement factors for electron and nuclear EDMs, atomic parity violation, the sensitivity of clock transitions to variation of the fine-structure constant, and — most relevant to quantum sensing — the response of atomic clocks, magnetometers and comagnetometers to ultralight/axion-like dark matter fields. He proposed much of the theory behind using networks of quantum sensors as dark matter detectors. 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 — his theory is what tells an experimentalist what a pT/sqrt(Hz) magnetometer or a 10^-18 clock actually constrains: without it, a spin-precession measurement is just a number. Theory group; a sensing postdoc would collaborate rather than join.

Department(s)/lab(s): Chemistry | Fleming Ultrafast Spectroscopy Lab @ UCB
Summary:

Fleming pioneered two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy and used it to reveal long-lived quantum coherences in photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes, work that reframed how energy transfer efficiency in natural and artificial light-harvesting systems is understood.

Department(s)/lab(s): School of Physics | Nanophotonics and Electromagnetic Materials Group @ USyd
Summary:

Fleming pioneered microstructured polymer optical fibre and continues to work on specialty fibre fabrication: drawing exotic polymer, hybrid polymer-metal and poled-silicate structures that would be impossible in conventional silica, and using them to build metamaterials and biomedical photonic devices including fibre-based sensors and probes. The fabrication route — preform drawing — gives access to geometries and material combinations that lithography cannot reach. 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 relevance to a sensing postdoc is delivery and packaging: fibre-integrated probes are the standard way to get an NV or vapour-cell sensor into a biological or field environment while preserving its pT/sqrt(Hz) sensitivity. Borderline inclusion; senior PI, fabrication-led.

Department(s)/lab(s): Bioengineering | Fletcher Lab @ UCB
Summary:

Fletcher combines optical and force microscopy (AFM, optical tweezers) with purified-protein and single-cell assays to measure the mechanics of cell movement and immune-cell activation, and has also developed low-cost imaging instrumentation (foldscopes, phone-based microscopes) for global health.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics (Atomic and Laser Physics Sub-department) | Ultracold Quantum Matter Group / AION Oxford (Foot Group) @ Oxford
Summary:

Foot leads the Ultracold Quantum Matter group and is one of the two Oxford physics PIs co-leading the AION project at Oxford. His group develops laser-cooled strontium atom sources with the ultranarrow Sr-87 clock transition for large-scale single-photon atom interferometry. Near-term goals include the AION-10, a 10-m baseline vertical atom interferometer currently under construction in the Beecroft Building stairwell, targeting dark matter searches and mid-band gravitational wave detection. Foot's group also studies non-equilibrium 2D quantum gas physics (BKT transition, vortex dynamics) using matter-wave interferometry. AION is linked to MAGIS-100 at Fermilab.

Department(s)/lab(s): Chemistry | Freedman Group @ MIT
Summary:

PREFERRED. Freedman uses synthetic inorganic chemistry to design molecular qubits from the electron spin of paramagnetic coordination complexes (e.g. chromium-centered complexes), giving Angstrom-scale, chemically tunable control over qubit placement and coherence for quantum sensing, communication, and metrology applications, including collaborations targeting dark-matter detection and biological/materials sensing; she directs the Institute-wide Quantum@MIT initiative.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics and Astronomy | Quantum Control Group (Freegarde Lab) @ Southampton
Summary:

Tim Freegarde's Quantum Control group develops atom interferometric sensors and matter-wave optics. Research: (1) optimal Raman pulse design for cold atom inertial sensors — geometric approach to π-pulse optimisation and robust control; (2) matter-wave interferometric velocimetry of cold atom clouds; (3) point-source interferometry for real-time scale-factor calibration of cold atom gyroscopes; (4) large-area atom interferometry. Part of the UK Quantum Technology Hub in Sensors and Metrology. Director of the CDT in Quantum Technology Engineering.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics – Photonics Group | Biophotonics Group – Photonics Department (French) @ Imperial
Summary:

French is Professor and former Head of the Photonics Group (2001–2013). His group at Imperial (with Dunsby and Neil) develops multidimensional fluorescence imaging technology for life sciences and clinical applications. Research portfolio: (1) FLIM — wide-field time-gated FLIM using gated optical intensifiers and TCSPC for single-cell FRET-based biosensing of protein-protein interactions, cell signalling (kinase activity), and drug-target engagement in multi-well plates; (2) Super-resolved microscopy — STED, easySTORM (lower-cost STORM), and SIM+FLIM for mapping molecular function to biological nanostructure below the diffraction limit; (3) FLIM endoscopy — flexible wide-field FLIM endoscopes for label-free cancer diagnostics (autofluorescence lifetime) and osteoarthritis cartilage; (4) Open-source imaging — automated multiwell plate FLIM reader for high-content drug screening. Satellite lab at Francis Crick Institute.

Techniques:
Department(s)/lab(s): Astronomy | French Group @ UIUC
Summary:

Studies tidal disruption events and other optical transients from supermassive black holes using time-domain spectroscopic and photometric surveys.

Department(s)/lab(s): School of Physics | Sydney Astroparticle and Dark Matter Group @ USyd
Summary:

Fruth is an experimentalist on LZ, the world-leading liquid-xenon dark matter experiment, and works on the detector-physics end: electron and single-photon backgrounds, calibration, and the characterisation of the anomalous low-energy events that currently limit sensitivity at the bottom of the energy spectrum. The programme is a pure exercise in pushing a detector's noise floor down until it is limited by irreducible physics (the neutrino fog). 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 — dark matter detection and NV-ensemble magnetometry are the same problem in different clothing — an exquisitely quiet detector, a signal below the background, and a systematics budget that determines everything — and the quantum-sensing community is increasingly supplying the readout technology (quantum-limited amplifiers, single-photon counters) that these experiments now need. Early-career PI.