Mesoscopic quantum spectrometer for condensed matter excitations

Alexis — 2024-11-22T09:35:45Z

Condensed matter physics faces the great challenge to explain macroscopic phenomena starting from many particles that are governed by the laws of quantum mechanics. Over the last 30 years, these research efforts have led to the development of superconducting technologies that exploit the quantum coherences in simple circuits. But up to now, few experiments have been able to coherently address condensed matter phenomena. Many of these collective phenomena such as magnons, plasmons or molecular vibrations have a typical energy in the meV range that corresponds to the TeraHertz (THz) frequency range. Alexis Jouan aims to develop superconducting quantum technologies to probe these collective excitations. This will provide decisive tools for accessing the quantum coherences of fundamental excitations such as spin waves in low-dimensional systems.

Topological metamaterials

Alexis — 2024-08-30T08:37:33Z

Metamaterials can strongly affect the transport properties of light in ways that are very different from the one of standard materials. Alexis Jouan works on using these metamaterials to guide sub-THz signals with low loss.

Metamaterials are mesoscopic structures which are used to guide or localize light in ways that could not be obtained with standard optical structures. The idea is to modify the materials on a typical scale much smaller than the wavelength but bigger than the lattice parameter. Because the wavelength is much longer than the periodicity of the metamaterial, the light experiences an effective medium. Condensed matter systems have inspired researchers to design original ways to guide and trap light in these mesoscopic structures.

CMQED group

Mesoscopic quantum spectrometer for condensed matter excitations

Topological metamaterials