Hu pioneers nanofabrication of photonic and electronic devices that couple 'artificial atoms' — semiconductor quantum dots and color-center spin defects (including in silicon carbide) — to nanoscale optical cavities, enabling coherent, efficient photon-spin interfaces for quantum networking and sensing; her emphasis on nanofabrication places this as a borderline, not-preferred case relative to sensitivity-first quantum sensing.
Hutchison works on molecular polaritonics: what happens to chemistry when molecular electronic or vibrational transitions are strongly coupled to a confined optical mode in a Fabry-Perot or plasmonic nanocavity. He was among the first to show that vibrational strong coupling modifies ground-state chemical reactivity, and the group continues to probe polariton-modified energy transfer, photochemistry and transport, alongside single-molecule spectroscopy and 2D-material photonics. 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 connection to quantum sensing is the cavity: the same Purcell and collective-coupling physics that concentrates optical density of states around a molecule is what is used to improve photon collection and readout fidelity in NV ensembles operating at pT/sqrt(Hz). This is fundamental light-matter physics with a clear nonclassical-state angle.
Hutzler's group uses cold and ultracold polar molecules (including polyatomics and laser-cooled species) as exquisitely sensitive probes of fundamental symmetry violation, searching for the electron electric dipole moment and other signatures of physics beyond the Standard Model; the group is developing molecules with enhanced sensitivity and internal co-magnetometry. For context, this complements the established paradigm of NV-diamond ensemble magnetometry (Hahn-echo/DEER, nanoscale NMR, T1 relaxometry) operating near pT/√Hz sensitivity.
Timon Idema (Associate Professor, BioNanoscience) develops theoretical models of cell biophysics. Research: (1) membrane shape theory — analytical and computational models of membrane curvature, budding, and fission driven by proteins; (2) cytoskeletal self-organisation — theoretical description of how microtubules and actin form functional structures during cell division; (3) synthetic cell theory — physical constraints and design principles for minimal cells. Collaborates closely with Dogterom and Koenderink labs on comparing theory with single-molecule experiments.
Imamoglu leads the Quantum Photonics Group at ETH, working at the intersection of quantum optics and condensed matter physics. Research directions: (1) Quantum emitters in 2D semiconductors — TMD monolayers (MoSe2, WSe2) host localized excitons that act as single-photon emitters; electrically tunable quantum dots in TMD heterostructures with high purity and spin-photon entanglement; developing them as quantum sensors of local electronic correlations at nanometer scales; (2) Strongly correlated electron physics — Mott insulator / Wigner crystal phases in moiré TMD bilayers probed optically with single-photon resolution; mapping electronic phases with nanometer spatial resolution; (3) Polariton quantum fluids — exciton-polaritons in 2D semiconductor microcavities; (4) Quantum nonlinear optics — photon-photon interactions via giant Kerr nonlinearities in strongly coupled quantum dots. Quantum sensing angle: quantum emitters as nanoscale probes of correlated phases.
Indelicato performs high-precision X-ray spectroscopy of highly-charged and exotic (muonic, antiprotonic, pionic) atoms at large-scale facilities to test bound-state quantum electrodynamics in the strong-field regime, complementing LKB's hydrogen/molecular-ion precision-spectroscopy programmes.
Irwin invented the transition-edge sensor (TES) and pioneered SQUID-multiplexed readout now used throughout CMB and dark-matter detector arrays; his group builds quantum-limited electromagnetic sensors for axion dark matter searches (DMRadio) and cryogenic calorimeters, pushing sensitivity to the standard quantum limit and beyond -- a field of quantum sensing that, like ensemble NV-diamond magnetometry reaching pT/√Hz sensitivities, trades off bandwidth and volume for extreme field sensitivity.
Ivanov works on nanotechnology-enabled biosensors and biophysical measurement platforms, including nanopore and microfluidic devices for single-molecule and single-particle biosensing.
Develops scalable, atomically-precise low-dimensional (2D/1D/0D) materials and heterostructures, focusing on single-photon emitters and spin defects in semiconductors for quantum sensing and molecular-based qubits.
Prof. Jacobsen's group develops novel methods, instruments, and analysis approaches for X-ray nanoscale imaging and applies them to biology and environmental science, using the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne. Directions: (1) Scanning X-ray fluorescence microscopy (SXFM) for organ-wide and nanoscale elemental mapping of metals (zinc, copper, iron) in biological tissues — central to the NIH-funded QE-Map national resource; imaging how metals regulate cellular functions, synaptic zinc signaling, and neurodegenerative disease; (2) X-ray ptychography and coherent diffractive imaging (CDI) for nanoscale biological imaging beyond the diffraction limit with improved dose efficiency; (3) Development of new algorithms, optics (zone plates), and detector systems to push spatial resolution and dose efficiency in X-ray microscopy — including lensless imaging methods and compressed-sensing reconstruction. Joint appointment at Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne Distinguished Fellow); also involved in QE-Map resource with Kozorovitskiy and Hao Zhang (McCormick).