Sarah Embacher

Summer BBQ 2025

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On a nice summer evening, our group enjoyed cold drinks and delicious food together with familiy & friends.

The highlights of the evening were a pot of Zaziki and the impressive skills of the Er-Dy team of organizing the BBQ grill in time. Most notably, Leonardo won against Clemens in the final round of an epic pingpong tornament that showcased both impressive skills in the sport as well as astonishing trick shots (accompanied by the permanent threat of FF’s dog Pincho stealing the pingpong ball).

Eva wins the “Best Paper Award” 2025!

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Photo Credit: Uni Innsbruck / Anna Maria Huber

Congratulations to Eva for winning the UIBK “Best Student Paper Award” in the Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics!

The prize was awarded for her paper, “Observation of vortices in a dipolar supersolid” published in the Nature journal here. You can also read about the paper in the press releases by the UIBK.

The ceremony for the award took place on Tuesday, June 24 at the main university in Innsbruck. You can find more details about the ceremony and the other award winners here.

Light-Assisted Collisions in Tweezer-Trapped Lanthanides

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Read our latest paper published on arxiv!

We present a quantitative investigation of one- and two-body light-mediated processes that occur to few erbium atoms in an optical tweezer, when exposed to near-resonant light. Using our ultrafast imaging technique with blue light, we are able to track the in-tweezer population dynamics during light-assisted collision and cooling processes.

To gain deeper insights into the underlying physics, we develop and implement a Monte Carlo algorithm that simulates the coupled dynamics of the atoms’ internal and external degrees of freedom. After validating our theoretical model against experimental data, we use its predictive capabilities to guide our experimental design. In particular, we examine how different erbium transitions influence light-assisted collisions, with a focus on optimizing their efficiency and reliability for preparing single atoms.

Quantum Science Documentary by ORF Tirol

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Photo Credit: ORF

We’re excited to share that our group is featured in the ORF Tirol documentary “The Future Begins Now – Innsbruck at the Center of Quantum Research” (in German), part of the Österreich-Bild series.

In the documentary, Éric Berdaguer explores how Innsbruck became a world-leading hub for quantum research. The story begins in the 1990s, when Anton Zeilinger—later awarded the Nobel Prize—laid the groundwork for quantum science in Tirol and helped put Innsbruck on the map. The film then shifts to the present, highlighting today’s cutting-edge research, including a visit to our labs and interviews with Francesca and other members of our group.

📺 Watch the full documentary here.

📰 Read the quantA article about the documentary here.

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