Tags - (20) ETH Zurich Quantum Center

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics – Institute of Physics (IPHYS) / CIBM | Laboratory for Functional and Metabolic Imaging (Gruetter Group, CIBM) @ EPFL
Summary:

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.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics – Institute for Quantum Electronics | Trapped Ion Quantum Information Group (Home Group) @ ETH Zurich
Summary:

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.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics – Institute for Quantum Electronics | Quantum Photonics Group (Imamoglu) @ ETH Zurich
Summary:

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.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics – Institute of Physics (IPHYS) | Laboratory of Photonics and Quantum Measurements (K-Lab) @ EPFL
Summary:

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-electron–photon interactions in microresonators. Spin-off companies and strong industry ties. Over 85,000 citations, h-index ~80.

Department(s)/lab(s): Department of Chemistry & Applied Biosciences (D-CHAB) – IMPS | Molecular Physics and Spectroscopy Group (Merkt) @ ETH Zurich
Summary:

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.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics – Institute for Quantum Electronics | Nanoscale Quantum Optics Group (Murthy) @ ETH Zurich
Summary:

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.

Department(s)/lab(s): D-ITET – Photonics Laboratory | Photonics Laboratory (Novotny Group) @ ETH Zurich
Summary:

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.

Department(s)/lab(s): D-MAVT – Nanophotonic Systems Laboratory | Nanophotonic Systems Laboratory (Quidant Group) @ ETH Zurich
Summary:

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).

Department(s)/lab(s): School of Life Sciences (SV) | Schueder Lab (High-Resolution Microscopy) @ EPFL
Summary:

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.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics – Institute for Quantum Electronics / PSI | Experimental Quantum Engineering Group (Xu) @ ETH Zurich
Summary:

Xu leads the Experimental Quantum Engineering group with a joint ETH–PSI 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 ETH–PSI Quantum Computing Hub.