Crozier holds a joint Physics/Electrical Engineering chair and runs a nanophotonics laboratory spanning plasmonic and dielectric metasurfaces, on-chip optical trapping and manipulation of nanoparticles and cells, mid-infrared spectroscopy and detection with metasurface-enhanced and colloidal-nanocrystal devices, and light emission from 2D semiconductors. The unifying theme is engineering the local optical density of states to increase the signal available from a very small number of emitters or molecules. 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 plasmonic and dielectric antenna work is the same physics used to raise photon collection efficiency and hence the shot-noise floor of NV-ensemble magnetometers operating at pT/sqrt(Hz). Note: a substantial fraction of the group's output is device fabrication rather than sensitivity-limited measurement, which is a caveat against the stated preference.

Faist is the inventor of the quantum cascade laser (QCL, 1994 at Bell Labs) and leads the Quantum Optoelectronics Group at ETH. Research directions: (1) QCL frequency combs — ring QCLs demonstrate dissipative Kerr solitons in the THz (Science Advances 2023), key for broadband integrated mid-IR spectrometers; (2) Dual-comb spectroscopy — two co-integrated ring QCLs for ultrafast molecular fingerprinting; (3) Quantum cascade detectors — strain-compensated InGaAs/InAlAs QCDs for short-wave mid-IR (<4 µm) sensing; (4) THz strong-coupling — ultrastrongly coupled 2DEG in cavities for quantum photonics; (5) Astrophysical heterodyne receivers — double-metal QCL Josephson mixers. Spin-off: IRsweep (mid-IR dual-comb systems) and Alpes Lasers (QCL commercialisation). FIRST Center head at ETH.

Prof. Mohseni's group (Bio-inspired Sensors and Optoelectronics) pushes III-V semiconductor photodetector technology toward thermodynamic and quantum limits of photon sensitivity. Key directions: (1) Nanoscale IR photodetectors: shrinking pixel dimensions below the diffraction limit using quantum confinement effects (InGaAs/InAlAs quantum well and dot structures) to improve sensitivity, bandwidth, and resolution simultaneously; (2) Superlattice photomultipliers — high-gain, low-noise avalanche photodetectors at room temperature approaching quantum-limited sensitivity for mid-wave and long-wave infrared detection; (3) Quantum sensing applications including squeezed-light-enhanced thermoreflectance imaging of electronic hotspots, and photon-counting receivers for quantum communications. Co-author on 275+ papers, 33+ US patents; NAI Fellow 2023; W.M. Keck Foundation Award, DARPA YFA, NSF CAREER. Fellow of SPIE and Optica. Also Professor of Physics and Astronomy.