Prof. Kumar's group spans classical and quantum optics across three inter-related areas: (1) Quantum Fiber Optics — generation and distribution of entanglement (photon-pair, multi-photon) over fiber networks, quantum key distribution, and first-ever quantum teleportation over active internet-carrying fiber; (2) Nonlinear Quantum Optics — squeezed light and twin-beam (two-mode squeezed) state generation via fiber-based four-wave mixing and χ⁽²⁾ processes, with applications to sub-shot-noise interferometry, quantum-enhanced imaging, and quantum communication; (3) Photon-entanglement-enhanced precision measurement and optical communications. AT&T Professor of Information Technology; INQUIRE Executive Committee member.
PREFERRED. Mavalvala's research (now balanced against her role as Dean of the School of Science) centers on gravitational-wave detection and quantum measurement science, including the original squeezed-light and quantum-noise work at LIGO that she led together with Matthew Evans. Given her administrative role, active new postdoc hiring in her own group is uncertain and should be confirmed directly.
Experimental cosmologist developing next-generation CMB detector arrays. Directions: (1) CMB-S4 detector development — leading TES bolometer and MKID array design for 500,000-detector focal plane; (2) South Pole Telescope SPT-3G operations and analysis; (3) cryogenic readout electronics including SQUID multiplexing at millikelvin temperatures; (4) quantum-limited photon detection at mm/submm wavelengths. APS Fellow.
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.
Pla is the strongest single match in this cohort for a candidate whose background is sensitivity-limited spin detection. His laboratory does inductively-detected electron spin resonance at millikelvin using high-quality-factor superconducting microresonators, read out through Josephson and travelling-wave parametric amplifiers operating at the quantum limit of added noise. The result is ESR sensitivity improved by many orders of magnitude over commercial spectrometers — the group's stated target is single-spin inductive detection — and, in parallel, the development of near-ideal degenerate parametric amplifiers and squeezed microwave states as the readout resource that makes it possible. Applications explicitly include chemistry and biology, where the goal is to do EPR on samples far too small for a conventional spectrometer. 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 — this is the microwave-inductive route to the same destination: where an NV ensemble reaches pT/sqrt(Hz) by optical readout of many spins, Pla reaches comparable or better spin sensitivity by making the microwave detection chain quantum-limited, and the DEER and dynamical-decoupling sequences are shared verbatim. Preferred attribute present in the strongest form: cutting-edge sensitivity, not device fabrication, is the object.
Pop's group builds superconducting quantum circuits from high-kinetic-inductance materials, above all granular aluminium, and uses them as detectors. The distinctive capability is single-microwave-photon detection and QND photon counting with superinductor-based devices -- an extremely low dark-count, quantum-limited receiver in the GHz band -- plus fluxonium-type qubits, quantum-limited and travelling-wave parametric amplification, and studies of quasiparticle and noise mechanisms that set coherence limits. The direct sensing payoff is dark-matter search: a photon counter that beats the standard quantum limit lets a haloscope integrate far faster than an amplifier-based readout. Relative to the established NV-ensemble quantum-sensing playbook (DEER, nanoscale NMR, T1 relaxometry at pT/sqrt(Hz) ensemble sensitivity), this is the microwave/superconducting counterpart to an NV ensemble -- same objective (detect an absurdly weak field), different physical platform and roughly opposite temperature regime. A recent addition to Stuttgart's 1st Institute of Physics, so the lab is being built out now, which usually means unusual latitude for a postdoc.
Works on quantum-limited sensing for astroparticle physics. Directions: (1) Pierre Auger Observatory — UHE cosmic ray composition and spectrum via radio and fluorescence detection; (2) liquid argon dark matter detectors; (3) co-PI DARPA QuSeN (2025) — quantum sensing of neutrinos using phonon-coupled SC qubit sensors with Cleland and Chou. KICP member.
Reichardt leads Melbourne's CMB effort and is a member of SPT-3G, the third-generation South Pole Telescope camera, whose focal plane is populated by ~16,000 transition-edge sensor bolometers read out by SQUID multiplexers. His science targets are CMB lensing, the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect and the small-scale temperature and polarisation power spectra; the enabling technology is cryogenic quantum-limited detection. 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 — this is the astronomical analogue of the same problem — a detector whose noise floor is set by fundamental quantum limits rather than by the source — and TES/SQUID readout is a natural pivot for a physicist trained on pT/sqrt(Hz) magnetometry, since SQUID amplification is the shared hardware. Preferred attribute present: astronomy where the quantum sensor is the enabling technology.
Reilly's Quantum Nanoscience Laboratory works on the interface between quantum devices and the classical control hardware needed to run them at scale — custom VLSI CMOS operating below 100 mK, high-bandwidth dispersive readout, and cryogenic microwave engineering — a programme built up during his long association with Microsoft's quantum effort. A distinct and directly relevant second thread is the manipulation of spin states in nanoparticles for new imaging modalities in medicine: hyperpolarisation and spin-state engineering of nanoparticle contrast agents, which is quantum control applied to MRI. 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 cryo-CMOS readout chain he builds is exactly the enabling technology that would let a pT/sqrt(Hz) spin-ensemble sensor be multiplexed into an array rather than run one channel at a time; and the nanoparticle-MRI thread is an independent route into biological spin sensing. Large group, strong engineering culture, significant industry entanglement.
Siddiqi's Quantum Nanoelectronics Laboratory develops superconducting quantum circuits and near-quantum-limited parametric amplifiers for qubit readout, quantum feedback, and quantum-enhanced sensing, and directs cross-campus quantum information efforts at Berkeley and LBNL.