Columbia Quantum Initiative

Metals, as most know them, are good conductors of electricity. That’s because the countless electrons in a metal like gold or silver move more or less freely from one atom to the next, their motion impeded only by occasional collisions with defects in the material. There are, however, metallic materials at odds with our conventional understanding of what it means to be a metal. In so-called “bad metals”—a technical term, explains Columbia physicist?Dmitri Basov—electrons hit unexpected resistance: each other. Instead of the electrons behaving like individual balls bouncing about, they become correlated with one another, clumping up so that their need to move more collectively impedes the flow of an electrical current. Bad metals may make for poor electrical conductors, but it turns out that they make good quantum materials. In work published on February 13 in Science Magazine, Basov’s group unexpectedly observed unusual optical properties in the bad metal molybdenum oxide dichloride (MoOCl2). Learn more about what they discovered: https://lnkd.in/eTRZviUG

The 131st Topical Symposium of the New York State Section of the American Physical Society will be held in-person at Saint John’s University (New York City) on Saturday,?April 12th, 2025. Learn more and register at https://nyssaps.org/

Columbia Engineering researchers discover photon avalanching nanoparticles are supersensitive to mechanical force—and nanosensors they went on to create are poised to redefine what’s possible in terms of sensitivities and dynamic ranges of optical force sensors. ?? #LaserFocusWorld #Optics #Sensors #Photonics

Our infrared nanosensors of force shine bright in this season's ?? PHOTONICS HOT LIST ?? ! ?? Read the story and watch the vid here: https://lnkd.in/eRNDUhUz ?? More about these (super-cool & not-so-hot -- RT ?? ) infrared nanosensors in the original article here:? Fardian-Melamed, et al. Infrared nanosensors of piconewton to micronewton forces.?Nature?637, 70–75 (2025).?https://lnkd.in/e9hxsTyQ ???? Columbia University, Columbia Engineering, Columbia Quantum Initiative, Molecular Foundry, Berkeley Lab ????

The photonic qubits generated in our micron-thick periodically-poled van der Waals materials made it to the cover of Nature Photonics! Check out the March issue: https://lnkd.in/dm4t5JFm Image by: Ella Marushchenko Studio. Check out the article: C. Trovatello et al.?Quasi-phase-matched up- and down-conversion in periodically poled layered semiconductors.?Nat. Photon.?19, 291–299 (2025) https://lnkd.in/dYhBAHjG Columbia University Columbia Engineering Columbia Quantum Initiative Politecnico di Milano Physics - Politecnico di Milano University of Vienna Università degli Studi dell'Aquila

Science shapes our world—but without the voices, ideas, and discoveries of women, it’s missing half the conversation. As we celebrate International Women’s Day on Saturday, we want to shine a light on the innovative, determined female researchers who make vital research in their respective fields in our blog "Inspiring the Next Generation: Stories of Women in Physics." ? Prof. Xueyue (Sherry) Zhang from Columbia University leads groundbreaking research in experimental quantum science, specifically superconducting circuits and color centers in silicon. Sherry was raised in a smaller city in China, where there were limited role models for girls in fields such as physics and chemistry. She grew up hearing that girls couldn’t study physics well, but knew that that wasn’t true. With the support of her parents and teacher, she got started, and as her curiosity grew, it became clear that driving breakthroughs through research was the meaningful path for her. ? Dr. Aziza Suleymanzade from Harvard University, soon to join University of California, Berkeley, focuses on hybrid quantum systems in her research. Aziza has always been inspired by innovative, ambitious projects. Having grown up with science all around her, science felt normal and attainable. Having supportive teachers and friends with the same interests kept her excited. The crucial skills for Aziza's career have been perseverance, curiosity, and not being afraid to learn something new and build something crazy. ? Prof. Eve Vavagiakis, PhD from Duke University develops novel astronomical instrumentation to enhance our understanding of the universe. Her curiosity in science was sparked by hands-on experiences. Initially, Eve thought that being a scientist required natural talents in mathematics and physics, but not skills in communication or teamwork. However, she realized that diverse skills are needed, with collaboration being a crucial one. Eve is passionate about science communication and has written children's books about physics to improve the accessibility of science and inspire the next generation. ? Read the inspiring full stories and learn about the advice that these researchers have for aspiring scientists in our blog:?https://lnkd.in/d7e5ykya #quantum #physics #astrophysics #cosmology #InternationalWomensDay #CoolForProgress

Excited to share that our graph-search method to identify laser cooling schemes in molecules just came out in PRR! Link: https://lnkd.in/ewriYeib While we developed it with molecules in mind, the graph-mapping method is perhaps more generally useful. It should be applicable to identify quantum control schemes for any quantum system with discrete spectra. We hope it's inspiring! Pls let us know your thoughts!! A big thank you to our amazing + creative team for the fantastic work, Anna Dawid, Niccolò Bigagli, and Daniel Savin! Thank you to Columbia University and Columbia Quantum Initiative for supporting this project through a RISE grant

I am glad to share that my first first-author paper at Columbia University has been published in Nature Communication! We discovered a new interaction between a ferroelectric transverse optical (TO) phonon and electronic transition. Our undergraduate semiconductor textbooks always tell us that a TO phonon can't couple to an electron due to the absence of a long-range Coulomb interaction. While this picture is valid for most polar semiconductors, it fails to consider the anharmonic nature of TO phonons in ferroelectric materials. We hypothesize that launching an anharmonic TO phonon leads to a nonzero change in polarization order and gives rise to the long-range interaction, which can potentially lead to various interesting transport phenomena and broaden the knowledge of energy-efficient optoelectronics. To validate our hypothesis, we collaborate extensively with six research groups in NYC and Brookhaven National Lab. Our work includes the synthesis of mm-size vdW ferroelectric, polarization-angle resolved Raman spectroscopy, reflectance spectroscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy, coherent phonon spectroscopy, first-principles calculation, time-domain terahertz spectroscopy, and resonant inelastic X-ray scattering. Huge thanks to every collaborator, who makes this work robust and solid. We have established a super cool 2D material to explore new physical properties and applications! https://lnkd.in/ehyUhgFY

Congratulations to the five Columbia faculty members selected as Sloan Research Fellows! The prestigious fellowship recognizes exceptional early-career scientists. https://lnkd.in/eFqz3W2f Columbia's 2025 Sloan Research Fellows are: ?? Lydia B. Chilton, assistant professor of computer science ?? Milan Delor, assistant professor of chemistry ?? Vikram Gadagkar, assistant professor of neuroscience ?? Raquel Queiroz, assistant professor of physics ?? Evan D. Sadler, associate professor of economics Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Beautiful findings and amazing collaborations! We observed that certain optical properties that were once unique to 2D atomic layers can now be realized even in bulk crystals. The magnetic confinement in a antiferromagnetic semiconductor CrSBr keeps excitons localized in single layers, regardless of the total number of layers. The result? Magnetic surface excitons and remarkably strong bulk excitons! See more details here: https://lnkd.in/dMEkVX5k A view-only version: https://rdcu.be/eauyM See also a nice News & Views article here: https://lnkd.in/dwMDKDFd and a closely related finding from Rupert Huber's group: https://lnkd.in/daF7vCBu