Romanenko leads the Quantum Technology thrust at the SQMS Center, using ultra-high-coherence 3D niobium SRF cavities as both long-lived quantum memories for multimode superconducting quantum computing and as ultra-sensitive detectors for fundamental physics. He conceived and led the Dark SRF experiment, the first demonstration of SRF cavities used as light-shining-through-wall detectors, achieving new sensitivity limits for hidden-sector dark photons, and continues to explore SRF-based sensing of dark matter and gravitational waves.

Prof. Shahriar's group uses atomic and optical systems for precision measurement and quantum information. Key directions: (1) White-light cavities — using anomalous dispersion media inside optical cavities to create a bandwidth-extended cavity enabling broadband gravitational wave detector sensitivity enhancement beyond current LIGO designs; (2) Superluminal (fast-light) gyroscopes — anomalous-dispersion-enhanced ring-laser gyroscopes for measuring the Lense-Thirring frame-dragging effect as a test of general relativity, with >10⁶× sensitivity enhancement over conventional Sagnac gyroscopes; (3) Quantum memories and computers using trapped atomic ensembles (PRISM protocol); (4) Ultra-low-light nonlinear optics with nanofibers and atoms for optical switching and quantum logic; (5) Holographic and polarimetric image processing. Member of LIGO Scientific Collaboration; contributed to GW170817 binary neutron star merger discovery. AT&T Professor of ECE.

The Stern Group explores fundamental quantum interactions of photons with 2D materials, nano-scale structures, and atoms. Key thrusts: (1) Valley-selective exciton-polaritons in monolayer transition-metal dichalcogenides (MoS₂, MoSe₂, WSe₂) embedded in optical microcavities — hybrid light-matter quasiparticles with valley-selective polarization and cavity-modified dynamics; (2) 2D semiconductor quantum emitters — quantum-dot-like single-photon emitters formed by confinement in TMD nanoribbons and by chemical functionalization/strain engineering of defects; (3) Astrophotonics: collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory and the Australian Astronomical Observatory to design and fabricate silicon ring-resonator photonic circuits for OH sky-background suppression in near-IR astronomical spectrographs; (4) Quantum non-reciprocal photonics in axisymmetric microresonators. Experimental tools: time-resolved spectroscopy, single-photon counting, nanofabrication. DOE Early Career Award; ONR Young Investigator Award; Sloan Research Fellow 2013. Affiliated with Fermilab-Northwestern CAPST.

Tempelaar develops theory and simulation methods (surface-hopping and vibronic exciton models) for two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy, explaining how vibronic coupling sustains excitonic coherence in photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes such as the Fenna-Matthews-Olson complex and LH2, and extending these ideas to singlet fission and organic-semiconductor aggregates. He is a faculty affiliate of Northwestern's Institute for Quantum Information Research and Engineering (INQUIRE).

Vafabakhsh uses single-molecule FRET to resolve the conformational dynamics of membrane receptors and channels -- including class C GPCRs, adhesion GPCRs, and potassium channels -- as they gate and signal, and applies related single-molecule methods to viral DNA packaging motors and synaptic protein complexes, aiming to build a quantitative, multi-scale picture of synaptic protein organization from the single-molecule to the synapse level.

Wang's BOBA group directly images young, self-luminous exoplanets by suppressing host-star glare with coronagraphy, extreme adaptive optics, and long-baseline optical interferometry (e.g. Keck/KPIC, VLTI), combined with physics-based computational signal-processing and machine-learning algorithms to extract faint planetary signals. He led early JWST direct-imaging detections of exoplanets and studies their orbits, formation, and atmospheres via high- and low-resolution spectroscopy. This is offered as an astronomy pivot on the filter: the enabling technology is increasingly complex opto-mechanical and computational instrumentation pushing spatial and spectral resolution, rather than a quantum sensor per se.

Wasielewski's group uses ultrafast photoinduced electron transfer within covalently linked organic donor-acceptor molecules to generate pairs of entangled electron spins (spin-correlated radical ion pairs) that behave as optically-initialized, microwave-addressable molecular qubits. Building on this platform, the group demonstrated explicit quantum sensing of electric fields via molecular-recognition-induced changes in a spin-correlated radical pair, alongside DNA-hairpin-hosted spin-qubit pairs and chirality-induced spin selectivity effects -- extending photosynthetic radical-pair chemistry into a designed quantum-sensing and quantum-information platform.

Zhang's lab develops two core optical technologies: spectroscopic single-molecule localization microscopy (sSMLM), which multiplexes emission-spectrum measurement with single-molecule localization to reach ~5 nm spatial resolution, and visible-light optical coherence tomography (vis-OCT), which exploits higher tissue contrast at visible wavelengths for micron-scale retinal and tumor-vasculature imaging in patients. Applications span cancer nanopathology and ophthalmology, including in-vivo human retinal oximetry.