Jacqueline Bloch leads a world-leading group on semiconductor exciton-polariton physics at C2N/Paris-Saclay. Research: (1) polariton condensation and quantum fluids of light — superfluidity, vortices, analogue gravity; (2) topological insulator physics with polaritons; (3) quantum simulation with polariton lattices; (4) fundamental quantum optics of polariton systems. IQUPS co-organiser; C2N head. Key for light-physics sensing relevant to quantum fluids and topological photonics.
Bramati leads the Quantum Fluids of Light team at LKB, studying exciton-polariton superfluids in semiconductor microcavities: quantized vortices, dark solitons, half-solitons behaving as magnetic monopoles, and analogue-gravity phenomena in polariton and photon fluids. The group also develops single-photon sources based on nanoemitters and coordinates the international Q-GAP program with Singapore's NRF on quantum fluids and photonics.
Cherroret develops the theory of multiple light scattering, Anderson localization, and quantum-fluid-of-light phenomena in disordered polariton/photonic systems, supporting the experimental polariton-fluid programme led by Alberto Bramati's team.
Simone De Liberato's Quantum Theory and Technology group explores quantum electrodynamics in semiconductor systems. Research: (1) ultrastrong and deep-strong light-matter coupling in polariton and circuit QED systems; (2) mid-infrared polariton physics with potential sensing applications; (3) virtual photon condensation and vacuum fluctuations in quantum materials; (4) positronium density measurements using polaritonic effects. Relevant to quantum sensing via strong coupling platforms.
Quentin Glorieux's group explores quantum fluids of light and polariton physics. Research: (1) exciton-polariton condensates in semiconductor microcavities — superfluidity, vortex dynamics, analogue gravity; (2) quantum fluids of light in atomic media — photon-photon interactions via electromagnetically induced transparency; (3) analogue gravity with polariton and photon fluids — studying acoustic black hole analogs with quantum light. IUF member; ERC grants.
Simon Groeblacher's lab probes quantum physics at meso- and macroscopic scales using mechanical motion, rare-earth ion emitters, and superconducting qubits. Key research directions: (1) quantum optomechanics with photonic crystal nano-beam resonators deep in the resolved-sideband regime; (2) silicon defect emitters (rare-earth doped silicon) for quantum network nodes; (3) quantum acoustics experiments coupling mechanical resonators to superconducting qubits. The lab fabricates all devices in-house at Kavli Nanolab and has received NWO Summit Grant for 'Quantum Limits' and QDNL/NWO grant for quantum network nodes.
Lakhwani runs the Molecular Photophysics Group and is a chief investigator in ARC Exciton Science. The group works on strong light-matter coupling in organic semiconductors: forming exciton-polaritons in microcavities, driving them toward polariton lasing and condensation with electrically injected devices, and engineering host-guest energy funnelling to lower thresholds. A second thread is chiroptical spectroscopy — circular dichroism and circularly polarised luminescence of chiral organic films — which is a polarisation-resolved measurement of a very small differential signal. 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 — polaritonic quantum matter is a distinct route to non-classical states of light at room temperature, in contrast to the cryogenic or spin-based platforms that dominate pT/sqrt(Hz)-class sensing; the differential chiroptical measurements the group performs are, methodologically, small-signal detection problems of exactly the same type.
Simon's lab engineers strong, atom-mediated interactions between photons in optical cavities -- using Rydberg dressing of intracavity atoms -- to synthesize interacting quantum photonic matter and study fundamental nonclassical light phenomena, effectively building tunable many-body systems out of light itself.