Together with the team of Dave Phillips in Exeter and our former group member Michael Horodynski, we published an article in Science Advances that demonstrates how shaping the wavefront of light can be used to create efficient optical tweezers (i.e., very stiff traps for particles). For more details see the press releases of Exeter University and of the Austrian Press Agency.
New paper on acoustic particle manipulation in Nature Physics
In a nice collaboration with the team of Romain Fleury at EPFL and our former Marie-Curie fellow Nicolas Bachelard from Bordeaux, we published an article in Nature Physics that demonstrates how audible sound can be used to steer and rotate objects in complex environments. See the News&Views article by Emmanuel Fort and the EPFL press release for more information. Also watch a video on how an origami lotus flower is moved through our sound technique.
Finalists in TU Wien’s Dragon Boat Cup
Congratulations to our faculty’s team participating in the university’s Dragon Boat Cup, where we reached the final and came fourth out of fourteen. Particular thanks go to Max and Luca from our group for participating.
New paper on the flow of Fisher Information in Nature Physics
In collaboration with the team of Ulrich Kuhl in Nice and with Dorian Bouchet in Grenoble, we published an article in Nature Physics that demonstrates how the information that waves acquire about an object flows from this object to an outside observer. From our group Jakob Hüpfl, Felix Russo and Lukas Rachbauer were principally involved in this study – congratulations! See the News&Views article by Arthur Goetschy, TU Wien’s press release or the Highlight on the Homepage of the German Physical Society for more information.
New paper on topological light emission in Science
Together with the team of Coskun Kocabas in Manchester and Sahin Ozdemir from Penn State University, we published a paper in Science showing that thermal emission can be localised at a topological interface. The image shown demonstrates this effect for the example of light emission from the complex boundary of the United Kingdom. Check out the news pieces on our work.
Lukas defended his PhD
Lukas Rachbauer successfully defended his PhD thesis on “Classical and Quantum Waves in Complex Environments” – congratulations! Many thanks go to Ben Stickler (from Ulm University) and Thomas Juffmann (from the University of Vienna) for serving as external referees and examinators.
Two atoms playing ping-pong with a single photon
In a new theory paper by Oliver and Dmitry just published in Physical Review Letters, we show that placing two atoms into a “fish eye cavity” results in a periodic emission and absorption of a single photon between them – similar to an ultrafast ping-pong game at the speed of light. See the press release of TU Wien for more information.
Carlos wins Quantum Austria grant from FWF
Carlos Gonzalez Ballestero obtained funding from the FWF through the Quantum Austria program – congratulations! Check his website for the openings associated with this funding at the following link.
Good bye Ivor and welcome Carlos
Our long-term postdoc and collaborator Ivor Krešić is leaving the group to take up a permanent position at the Institute of Physics in Zagreb and Carlos Gonzalez-Ballestero from the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Innsbruck is joining us on a tenure-track position. All the best, Ivor, for your future endeavours – we hope to stay in touch! – and welcome, Carlos – we look forward to the collaboration!
The triggered quantum avalanche
Together with the team of Jörg Schmiedmayer at the Atominstitut, we demonstrated how to halt and then trigger the super-radiant decay of an ensemble of inverted Nitrogen-Vacany spins in diamond. From our group, Oliver performed the calculations, reaching very good agreement with the experimental data. For more details see the corresponding open access paper in Physical Review Letters and the associated press release from TU Wien.