Summary: Co-supervises the Laboratoire Kastler Brossel (LKB) — one of the world's premier quantum optics laboratories, with 3 Nobel Prizes. Key groups at Jussieu relevant to quantum sensing: Treps/Parigi (multimode quantum optics, frequency-comb quantum metrology — directly applicable to astronomical spectrograph calibration and quantum-enhanced sensing); Gigan (wavefront shaping for deep-tissue imaging, quantum multimode optics in scattering media — breakthrough bio-sensing); Cohadon/Heidmann/Jacqmin (optomechanics, radiation-pressure sensing, back-action evasion, superconducting electromechanics). Exceptional for quantum-enhanced bio-imaging and optical quantum metrology for astronomy.
Notes: Formerly Pierre and Marie Curie University (UPMC). Co-supervises the Laboratoire Kastler Brossel (LKB) jointly with ENS, Collège de France, and CNRS — 3 Nobel Prizes, one of the world's premier quantum physics laboratories. Key LKB groups hosted at Jussieu campus: Quantum Optics / Multimode Quantum Optics (Treps, Parigi — squeezed light, frequency-comb quantum metrology), Quantum Fluids of Light (Glorieux, Bramati — polaritons, nanophotonics), Quantum Networks (Laurat — quantum memory, photon-atom interfaces), Optical Imaging in Complex Media (Gigan — wavefront shaping, deep-tissue imaging, quantum multimode optics), Optomechanics & Quantum Measurements (Cohadon, Heidmann, Jacqmin — radiation-pressure sensing, back-action evasion, superconducting electromechanics). Campus provides shared optics facilities and SPEC cleanroom access.
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.
Brune leads the Circular Rydberg Atom / Cavity QED group at LKB (Collège de France site), continuing the work of Serge Haroche (Nobel 2012). Note: Brune is employed by ENS, not Sorbonne Université; postdoc contracts are typically ENS/CNRS. Research directions: (1) Circular Rydberg atoms — atoms in extremely high principal quantum number states (n~50) with extremely long radiative lifetimes (~30 ms) and large dipole moments; (2) Cavity QED quantum sensing — single circular atoms probe the microwave field in a superconducting cavity photon-by-photon via quantum non-demolition measurement; (3) Quantum state engineering — generating Fock states, Schrödinger cat states, and entangled atom-field states in the cavity; (4) Tests of quantum complementarity — observing decoherence of mesoscopic superpositions in real time as a probe of quantum-to-classical transition. The 'quantum radio receiver' using single atoms to sense individual microwave photons is a landmark quantum sensing demonstration.
Cohadon and Heidmann co-lead the Optomechanics and Quantum Measurements group at LKB. Research directions: (1) Back-action evasion and Standard Quantum Limit (SQL) — early demonstration of radiation-pressure back-action in a micro-mirror (Nature 2006), subsequent beating of SQL via quantum correlations; (2) Micro/nanomechanical resonators — 2D photonic crystal deformable slabs, membrane-in-the-middle cavities, micropillar resonators for radiation-pressure optomechanics; (3) Superconducting qubit–macroscopic membrane coupling — Jacqmin & Deléglise team: resonant coupling of transmon qubit to MHz membrane oscillator, tracking quantum motion with 300 repeated interactions (2025); high-impedance hyperinductors for electromechanics; (4) Gravitational wave detector contributions — VIRGO/LIGO data analysis and quantum noise modeling. Applications include back-action-evading force sensing and tests of quantum mechanics at macroscopic scales.
Defienne leads the Quantum Imaging Paris group at INSP, using spatial correlations and Hong-Ou-Mandel-type interference between entangled photon pairs to build microscopes that see through scattering media and correct optical aberrations without a spatial light modulator. His ERC-funded CORAMI project develops correlation-based adaptive optics as a universal add-on module for existing microscopes, targeting deeper (>1 mm), higher-contrast in-vivo imaging for neuroscientists, dermatologists, and ophthalmologists.
Gigan leads the Optical Imaging group at LKB, pioneering wavefront shaping and computational imaging through scattering media. Research directions: (1) Wavefront shaping / transmission matrix — measuring the ~10^5 optical modes of a scattering sample's transmission matrix to focus and image through highly scattering biological tissues; roadmap on deep tissue imaging (J. Phys. Photonics 2022, lead author); (2) Multimode quantum optics through complex media — spatially multimode squeezed states transmitted through scattering media for quantum-enhanced imaging; (3) Optical computing / AI — using multiple scattering as a physical neural network for reservoir computing and nonlinear machine learning (LightOn spin-off, 2016); (4) Neurophotonics applications — focusing through the skull for deep brain imaging. Two ERC grants (2011, 2017). Optica Fellow. IUF member (2016–2021).
Gleyzes is a CNRS researcher in the Rydberg Atoms team at LKB (successor to Serge Haroche's cavity-QED group), where he achieved the first quantum non-demolition detection of a single microwave photon. The team now prepares non-classical states of circular Rydberg atoms as probes for electric- and magnetic-field sensing below the standard quantum limit, uses quantum optimal control to navigate large Rydberg Hilbert spaces, and has demonstrated millisecond-lived circular states at room temperature, a route toward practical Rydberg-atom quantum sensors and simulators.
Glorieux leads the Quantum Fluids of Light and Nanophotonics group at LKB. Research directions: (1) Quantum fluids of light in atomic vapors — hot Rb/Cs vapor as paraxial photon fluids exhibiting superfluidity, soliton dynamics, and vortex formation; first analogue cosmological particle creation (Hawking effect) in a photon fluid (Nature Communications 2022); (2) Polariton superfluids — exciton-polariton microcavities for analogue gravity, Bogoliubov dispersion mapping, and first-order dissipative phase transitions; (3) Nanophotonics — coupling single quantum emitters (nanofiber-coupled atoms, perovskite nanocrystals) for quantum photonics and sensing; displacement sensor based on optical nanofiber; (4) Optical computing interfaces with quantum systems. Marie Curie IOF Fellow (2011), City of Paris Young Scientist Award (2015).
Landragin directs SYRTE and its Cold Atom Interferometry and Inertial Sensors team, which develops light-pulse atom interferometers as absolute gravimeters and gyroscopes: the Cold Atom Gravimeter (CAG), whose single-laser pyramid-reflector design he co-invented and commercialized through the start-up Muquans (now Absolute Quantum Gravimeter, AQG), and continuously-operating cold-atom gyroscopes reaching record joint sensitivity. Applications span geodesy, hydrology, volcano monitoring and inertial navigation. He received the CNRS Innovation Medal in 2020.
Laurat leads the Quantum Networks team at LKB, developing quantum memories and atom-photon interfaces for quantum network applications. Research directions: (1) High-efficiency cold-atom quantum memories — DLCZ-protocol and AFC memories for telecom photons; demonstrating >90% efficiency and multimode operation; quantum cryptography integrating optical quantum memory (arXiv Mar 2025); (2) Waveguide QED — cold atoms coupled to nanofibers and nanophotonic waveguides for super-radiance, photon-bound states, and atom-photon gates; (3) Quantum network protocols — entanglement distribution, quantum repeater segments; part of European Quantum Flagship 'Quantum Internet Alliance'; (4) Hybrid entanglement — continuous-variable and discrete-variable hybrid entanglement for CHSH Bell tests (PRA 2024). Senior IUF member.
Le Targat co-leads SYRTE's Optical Frequency Metrology team, which built and continuously operates two independent strontium optical lattice clocks alongside a mercury lattice clock, comparing them at the 10^-16 to 10^-17 level and to SYRTE's caesium fountain primary standards. This work underpins the prospective redefinition of the SI second on an optical transition and supports frequency-transfer, geodesy and fundamental-physics tests via fiber links to other French metrology laboratories.