Research Fellow Position in San Sebastian
Apply now for building a powerful new platform for quantum simulation with dysprosium atoms in programmable optical tweezer arrays. More information in the Dy-Yt Lab Section!
2025 Group Openings!
We are happy to announce that our dipolar quantum gas group has an Academy Scientist + Postdoc and PhD positions open for 2025!
“Dance your PhD 2025” contest by Science and AAAS
Congratulations to our PhD student Arfor, who turned our research topics into a dazzling music video!
Vortices in a supersolid
2024’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Physics: Our research on the observation of vortices in a dipolar supersolid featured by Quanta magazine!
Austrian of the Year 2024
Francesca was crowned as the ‘Austrian of the Year’ in the research category at the Austria 24 gala by Die Presse!
Summer BBQ
Our 2024 Summer BBQ took place on the 24th of June and celebrated the many different achievements of the group!
Murder Mystery Dinner
Our 2024 group dinner took place on the 18th of January at CasoinN da Giorgio restaurant, with a 1920’s Murder Mystery theme!
Glitches in supersolids: links between neutron stars and quantum matter
By emulating the connection between a rotating supersolid phase and an external solid phase, we were able to replicate “glitches” – sudden jumps in the solid angular momentum driven by quantum vortices leaving the supersolid.
Cluster of Excellence Quantum Science Austria granted
Three Clusters of Excellence in Innsbruck have been funded! With highly endowed clusters of excellence, the Austrian Science Fund FWF creates Austrian flagships of basic research. The University of Innsbruck will coordinate the Cluster of Excellence for Quantum Sciences.
Bloch Oscillations
By letting an erbium quantum droplet fall under gravity through an optical lattice, it is possible to understand the inter-atomic interactions and quantum fluctuations through variations of the Bloch oscillation.
Our group studies dipolar quantum gases made of Erbium (Er) and Dysprosium (Dy) atoms. These extraordinarily magnetic species are a powerful new resource for reaching quantum simulation with strong connectivity, in which each atom is coupled to the other over long distances, and exploring exotic phases of matter that have no classical counterpart.
We have four labs: the ERBIUM LAB, where Er was Bose condensed for the first time ever; the Er-Dy LAB, which studies quantum dipolar mixtures under a quantum-gas microscope; the T-REQs LAB, where we trap Er atoms in arrays of optical tweezers for Rydberg physics; and the Dy-Yb LAB, currently under construction – this new experimental apparatus will be used to study many-body phases of highly-magnetic dysprosium and of mixtures with non-magnetic ytterbium. The Theory Group completes our team studying and predicting dipolar phenomena in dipolar quantum gases and mixtures.
The group, led by Francesca Ferlaino, is jointly located at the Institute for Experimental Physics (IExP) of the University of Innsbruck and at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and it is part of the Innsbruck Center for Ultracold Atoms and Quantum Gases.
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News from the labs
In our Erbium experiment, we have created the first two component dipolar Fermi gas with tunable interactions. This paves the way to studies of BEC-BCS physics in presence of an unprecedented few-body scattering scenario, including anisotropic long-range dipolar interactions and anisotropic short-range interactions.
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In collaboration with our theory colleagues from Serbia (Antun Balaž, Vladimir Veljic), Germany (Axel Pelster) and Brazil (Aristeu R. P. Lima), we have investigated the ground-state properties of dipolar Fermi gases, extending the current understanding to the case of arbitrary dipole orientation and trapping geometries.
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Now in Nature Physics! In collaboration with our theory collaborators from Innsbruck (Rick van Bijnen) and Hannover (Falk Wächtler and Luis Santos), we have observed for the first time so-called roton quasiparticles in an ultracold quantum gas of highly magnetic bosonic erbium.
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Group news
Francesca Ferlaino, professor at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and scientific director at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences receives an ERC Advanced Grant, the highest European funding for established scientists in basic research.
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On the International Women's Day March 8, 2012 a team led by Francesca Ferlaino created the very first BEC from highly-magnetic erbium atoms in their lab at the University of Innsbruck.
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Elena has been awarded the prize “Ho una laurea nella manica” established by her hometown for young people who graduated cum laude in 2020.
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Welcome and goodbye
Welcome to Amal El-Arrach and Simon Gschwendter, who have joined respectively the T-REQS and the Erbium teams for their master thesis.
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Welcome to Dr. Hagai Edri (right) and Julián Maloberti (left) who have joined the T-Reqs team as postdoctoral fellow and Phd student, respectively.
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Beginning in July, Russell joined the University of Innsbruck as an Assistant Professor. He is building a theory group within the Department of Experimental Physics, with a focus on ultracold quantum gases, most notably bringing his expertise on dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates. He is looking forward to working in Innsbruck and
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