Gruetter leads the Laboratory for Functional and Metabolic Imaging (LFMI) at EPFL and co-directs the CIBM (Centre for Biomedical Imaging). Research directions: (1) Ultra-high-field in vivo MR spectroscopy β developing 1H, 13C, 31P, 23Na MRS at 14.1T animal and 7T human systems to measure metabolite concentrations (glutamate, GABA, lactate) in brain with unprecedented sensitivity; (2) Quantum coherence effects in NMR β exploiting J-coupling evolution and JPRESS sequences for quantum-selective metabolite editing; (3) Hyperpolarization β DNP-enhanced metabolite sensing in vivo for tracking metabolic flux in real time; (4) Neuroimaging β quantitative BOLD fMRI calibration and cerebral blood flow mapping. The 14.1T magnet is among the world's most powerful for biological NMR spectroscopy.
Home leads the TIQI group working with Be+ and Ca+ trapped ions. Research directions: (1) Quantum error correction β fault-tolerant gates, surface code implementations with multi-ion chains; (2) Precision metrology β ytterbium ion optical clock, mixed-species ion chain spectroscopy and ytterbium HFS measurements; (3) Macroscopic superposition and quantum contextuality β creating nonclassical motional states in harmonic oscillators for tests of quantum foundations; (4) Scalable architectures β photonic integrated waveguides for individual ion addressing, quantum logic detection of spectroscopy ions. Key publications include first two-qubit gates with mixed species and records in quantum state readout fidelity. Lab is investigating quantum logic-enhanced spectroscopy of complex atomic systems.
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 β 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 β Mott insulator / Wigner crystal phases in moirΓ© TMD bilayers probed optically with single-photon resolution; mapping electronic phases with nanometer spatial resolution; (3) Polariton quantum fluids β exciton-polaritons in 2D semiconductor microcavities; (4) Quantum nonlinear optics β photon-photon interactions via giant Kerr nonlinearities in strongly coupled quantum dots. Quantum sensing angle: quantum emitters as nanoscale probes of correlated phases.
Kippenberg leads the Laboratory of Photonics and Quantum Measurements (K-Lab) at EPFL, pioneer of chip-scale microresonator frequency combs and cavity optomechanics. Research directions: (1) Soliton microcombs β dissipative Kerr solitons in Si3N4 microresonators for massively parallel coherent optical communications, precision ranging/LiDAR (Science 2018, Nature 2017); dual-chirped microcomb parallel ranging at megapixel rates; (2) Room-temperature quantum optomechanics β phononic-crystal-patterned Si3N4 membrane-in-the-middle cavity reduces frequency noise 700Γ, observing quantum backaction at room temperature (Nature 2024); (3) Superconducting circuit optomechanics β topological lattices, electromechanical sensing (Nature 2022); (4) Free-electronβphoton interactions in microresonators. Spin-off companies and strong industry ties. Over 85,000 citations, h-index ~80.
Merkt leads the Molecular Physics and Spectroscopy group at ETH D-CHAB. Research directions: (1) High-resolution XUV/VUV spectroscopy β using synchrotron radiation and table-top laser sources to study molecular Rydberg states, ionization thresholds, and ro-vibrational structure at sub-MHz precision; (2) Precision molecular clock transitions β proposing and measuring molecular transitions suitable for fundamental constant variation searches (ΞΌ, Ξ±); (3) Metastable atom and ion trapping β developing new trapping methods for precision spectroscopy of exotic species; (4) Pulse and Fourier transform microwave spectroscopy β rotational spectroscopy of transient species. Direct applications to molecular quantum sensing and fundamental physics.
Murthy leads the Nanoscale Quantum Optics group at ETH, studying light-matter interactions in nanostructures to engineer novel quantum states of light. Research directions: (1) Photon-photon interactions β achieving strong effective photon-photon interactions via coupling to quantum emitters in 2D materials and optical nanocavities; exploring photonic Mott insulators and collective quantum phases of light; (2) 2D semiconductor quantum emitters β localized excitons in TMD heterostructures as sources of single photons and entangled photon pairs; (3) Quantum light from cavities β engineering photon statistics and squeezing using cavity-QED with 2D materials; (4) Ultrafast quantum optics β attosecond-scale probing of light-matter entanglement. New group as of ~2023.
Novotny leads the Photonics Lab with a primary focus on levitodynamics. Research directions: (1) Ground-state cooling of levitated nanoparticles β demonstrated quantum control and motional ground state cooling of silica nanospheres in cryogenic free space (Nature 2021) and all 6 degrees of freedom simultaneously via coherent scattering (Nature Physics 2023); (2) Quantum delocalization and matter-wave interference of levitated nanoparticles (arXiv 2408.01264, 2024); (3) Cavity-mediated long-range interactions between multiple levitated nanoparticles, enabling collective quantum sensing arrays; (4) Optical cold damping, measurement-free coherent feedback (PRL 2025); (5) 2D optoelectronics β graphene/hBN/TMD-based laser detectors and modulators. Heavily cited levitodynamics review (Science 2021, joint with Quidant). Group feeds into applications in quantum-limited force sensing and macroscopic quantum tests.
Quidant leads the Nanophotonic Systems Laboratory, developing hybrid integrated levitation platforms combining optical and RF fields. Research directions: (1) Measurement-free coherent optical feedback cooling of levitated nanoparticles (PRL 2025, phonon occupations ~100s); (2) Quantum sensing applications β ultra-sensitive force/acceleration sensing, directional dark matter detection with levitated sensors; (3) Meta-atom levitation β Mie-resonance high-permittivity particles in optical traps for extreme light-matter interaction; (4) Optofluidics β structured light for photothermal fluid control; (5) Cancer phototherapy β photothermal nanoparticle applications. Pioneer in nanoplasmonic tweezers, thermoplasmonics, and on-chip biosensing. Key co-author of Science levitodynamics review (2021).
Schueder is a newly appointed (2025) EPFL Assistant Professor specializing in high-resolution microscopy and its biological applications. He played a key role in the development of DNA-PAINT, a super-resolution microscopy technique enabling nanometer-scale (~5 nm) visualization of cellular structures via transient programmable DNA hybridization. Research directions: (1) DNA-PAINT super-resolution β multiplexed, quantitative imaging of protein complexes in fixed and living cells with Exchange-PAINT; (2) Single-molecule localization below 5 nm resolution β resolving individual proteins within complexes; (3) Biological applications β imaging cytoskeletal networks, receptor clustering, chromatin organization; (4) Expanding to in situ structural biology β correlating super-resolution images with cryo-EM data. Transferred from ETH Zurich. Strong fit with EPFL imaging and structural biology ecosystem.
Xu leads the Experimental Quantum Engineering group with a joint ETHβPSI appointment. Research directions: (1) Superconducting circuit quantum sensing β using qubits-as-sensors for detecting weak microwave signals beyond standard quantum limits, quantum non-demolition readout of photon fields; (2) Quantum error correction enabled sensing β integrating bosonic codes (cat qubits, binomial codes) into sensing protocols; (3) Quantum acoustics β coupling superconducting qubits to surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators for hybrid quantum sensing; (4) Novel quantum hardware at PSI β leveraging PSI's infrastructure for cryogenic device fabrication and testing. Connected to the ETHβPSI Quantum Computing Hub.