One of modern science’s most important quests is to understand how the world works at its smallest and fastest constituents, and filming electronic transitions is the hallmark of today’s frontiers in quantum phenomena. These motions occur in attoseconds timescales, 10-18 seconds or a quintillionth of a second, during which the most elusive yet consequential collective processes determine the physical, chemical, and/or biological properties of functional systems.
By documenting these quantum dynamics in action, we are poised to bring remarkable breakthroughs in chemistry, life, energy, and information sciences. For example, the possibility of visualizing quantum reactivity and cooperativity underpins the basic understanding and ability to control all imaginable physical events, such as stewarding climate change-contributing chemical reactions for future zero-carbon technologies, filming photosynthetic centers to understand fundamental oxygen production enabling life on Earth, enabling personalized medicine through photo-activated protein therapies, or controlling single photon emitters/receivers for quantum computing architectures.
Check out our broad areas of expertise below and our publications for further technical details.
Ultrafast & Nonlinear Optics, Quantum Photonics
The archetypical objective of quantum photonics is to investigate strategies and technologies capable of coherently controlling nano-, macro-, and mesoscopic properties of technologically relevant quantum materials and systems using structured light. Under this pillar, we explore novel ultrafast and nonlinear optics methodologies to generate and use light by design.
Areas of application
- Structured light
- Frequency combs and attosecond metrology
- THz science and technology
- Machine Learning in modern optics
Quantum Electrodynamics & Molecular Dynamics
Light by design bears a unique inquisitive power to excite and probe dynamic molecular processes in atomic, molecular, chemistry, and condensed matter physics. These tools can be used to deepen our understanding of fundamental processes underpinning energy and life sciences. In this topical area, we examine new opportunities at the intersection between physical (bio)chemistry and solid-state physics.
Areas of application
- Quantum electrodynamics
- Physical chemistry and biochemistry
- (Soft) condensed matter physics
- Environmental engineering
- Topological catalysis
Particle Accelerators & X-ray Free Electron Lasers
Unifying laser and accelerator physics is essential for the development of future accelerators, light sources, and other scientific instruments due to increasingly synergistic advances at the cross-section between these two fields. This has materialized advanced facilities around the world, such as XFELs for ultrafast photon sciences, and electron and ion sources for high energy physics and fusion energy sciences, among many others.
Areas of application
- Laser-matter interactions and nanophotonics
- On-chip electron beam sources
- Compact X-ray sources
- Free-electron Laser science and technology
- Electron beam shaping
- Ultrafast electron diffraction and microscopy
Scientific Epistemology in Critically Representative Science & Technology
Exercising representative science requires not only diverse and inclusive researchers but also a continual examination of the interconnectedness of normative logics and hierarchies of power with how scientific knowledge is produced.
We focus on informing STEM pedagogy and research with tools and metholodologies residing in the humanities and social sciences. Queering specific normalized categories in physical sciences and engineering, and mapping linkages with systems of political and economic power, humanities, and social sciences has a unique capacity to shift STEM identity and educate the STEM trainees and practitioners to critically examine their role and responsibility in shaping society.