News
Welcome to Ali Foroozmand!
Ali obtained his master's degree in physics from the University of Shiraz in Iran.
Jamie won the best poster award at the Quantum Optics XI conference
Jamie won the Best Poster prize at the Quantum Optics XI conference held in Kraków, Poland.
Welcome to Utku Yigit!
Utku Yigit is currently a master's student at the Universität Innsbruck.
Mehdi won the poster prize at ÖPG-SPS meeting!
Mehdi Rizvandi won the Best Poster prize by SFB BeyondC at the ÖPG-SPS meeting 2025 in Vienna.
First OS for quantum networks created
An international research team including the group led by Tracy Northup has developed the first operating system designed for quantum networks: QNodeOS. The research, published in Nature, marks a major step forward in transforming quantum networking from a theoretical concept to a practical technology that could revolutionize the future of the internet.
Welcome Back Alexandru Guțoiu!
Alexandru completed his bachelor's degree at the Faculty of Physics, University of Bucharest.
QIG at MIP Day 2025!
The Quantum Interfaces Group has once again taken part in the MIP Day, an event organized by the Physics Department in collaboration with the Computer Science and Mathematics Institutes. Here, a wide range activities is offered to secondary education students.
Welcome to Bo Wang!
Bo completed his master's thesis at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany.
Welcome to Tadeáš Volný!
Tadeáš Volný is currently a master's student of General and Mathematical Physics at the University of Olomouc.
Welcome to Liyang Zhang!
Liyang completed her master's thesis in the Experimental Quantum Engineering Group in ETH Zürich.
Welcome to Miao Cai!
Miao obtained his PhD in Optical Engineering from Nanjing University, China.
Welcome to Shivam Sawarn!
Shivam graduated with his master's in Physics from Hindu College in Delhi, India.
Welcome to Sudhan Pratap Bhadade!
Sudhan completed her master's thesis at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Bhopal, India.
QIG Retreat in Meißner Haus
This year our group gathered for a retreat at the Meißner Haus.
Welcome to Alexandru Guțoiu!
Alexandru completed his bachelor's degree at the Faculty of Physics, University of Bucharest.
Viktor receives his PhD!
Congratulations to Viktor Messerer on his PhD titled "Generation of Single Photons with Trapped Ions Coupled to a Fiber Cavity."
Integrating a fiber cavity into a wheel trap
The cavity-QED team reports on their novel ion-cavity system designed for coupling a fiber cavity to multiple ions in the strong coupling regime.
Welcome to Leo Walz!
Leo is a master's student at Heidelberg University. He has joined the group for an internship project with the nanosphere experiment.
Entangled atoms across the Innsbruck quantum network
Trapped ions have previously only been entangled in one and the same laboratory. Now, teams led by Tracy Northup and Ben Lanyon from the University of Innsbruck have entangled two ions over a distance of 230 meters. The experiment shows that trapped ions are a promising platform for future quantum networks that span cities and eventually continents.
The wheel trap and fiber cavity were featured on the front page!
Our article “Integrating a fiber cavity into a wheel trap for strong ion–cavity coupling" was featured on the cover of AQS's March 2023 issue.
Welcome, Abderrahmane Kassid!
Abderrahmane is a master's student from the École normale supérieure in Paris. He has joined the group for an internship project with the nanosphere experiment.
3D sympathetic cooling and detection of levitated nanoparticles
The nanosphere team reports on how to cool and detect a nanoparticle without direct laser illumination. The research was published in the journal Optica.
Welcome to Svenja Müller!
Svenja received her Master from the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology, Germany. Now she has joined the cavity QED experiment as a PhD student.
Welcome to Miriam Martínez!
Miriam received her Master in Nanoscience from the University of the Basque Country, Spain. Now, she has joined the Nanospheres team as a PhD student.
Welcome to Jolan Tissier!
Jolan has joined the group for an internship project with the fiber cavity experiment. In particular he will join the effort of developing and conducting the measurement of the vacuum Rabi splitting, a way to directly extract the coupling strength between the ion and the cavity.
Welcome to Luca Mastrangelo!
Luca has joined the Big cavity experiment for his master thesis. He will work on the absorption of single photons for quantum network experiments.
Katharina receives her master degree!
Congratulations to Katharina Heidegger on her Master's Thesis! Katharina's thesis is titled "Self-homodyne position detection of a levitated silica nanoparticle".
A mirror tracks a tiny particle
Sensing with levitated nanoparticles has so far been limited by the precision of position measurements. Now, researchers at the University of Innsbruck led by Tracy Northup, have demonstrated a new method for optical interferometry in which light scattered by a particle is reflected by a mirror. This opens up new possibilities for using levitated particles as quantum mechanical sensors.
Nanosphere a hot topic at ICAP 27
Tracy will talk about our recent results in the nanosphere and ion experiment.
Simon receives an ESPRIT grant by the FWF
Congratulations to Simon Baier on receiving an ESPRIT grant within the research initiative Quantum Austria!
Microparticle transfering from an ion to an optical trap, and vice versa
The nanosphere team demonstrates how to transfer a microparticle back and forth between an ion trap and a dual-beam optical trap. The research was published in the journal Review of Scientific Instruments.
Build an advanced European quantum internet ecosystem
The Quantum Internet Alliance has started a seven-year program to build an innovative Quantum Internet ecosystem in Europe. The first phase has a budget of 24 million euros. The research groups led by Tracy Northup and Benjamin Lanyon at the Department of Experimental Physics of the University of Innsbruck and the quantum computer spin-off AQT will be involved in the project.
Dario receives his PhD!
Congratulations to Dario Alessandro Fioretto on his PhD thesis! Dario's thesis is titled "Towards a flexible source for indistinguishable photons based on trapped ions and cavities".
How to build the next quantum computers
Tracy is co-author of a review article now published in Science about how recent progress in material science could help physicists in building better quantum computers
Simon interviewed by the Austrian broadcaster ORF
Simon Baier talks to the Austrian broadcaster ORF about the three-node quantum network that he helped to build in Delft and how it connects to our quantum network goals in Innsbruck
Austrian Quantum Fiber Network kickoff meeting
The Austrian Quantum Fiber Network (AQUnet) will enable new research in quantum communication and quantum metrology.
Insulators turn up the heat on quantum bits
Physicists have long suspected that dielectric materials may significantly disrupt ion-trap quantum computers. Now, researchers led by Tracy Northup have developed a new method to quantify this source of error for the first time. For the future operation of quantum computers with very many quantum bits, such noise sources need to be eliminated already during the design process.
Lorenzo wins the UniKORN poster prize!
Lorenzo Dania won the prize for Best Contributed Poster at today's UniKORN Virtual Poster Session.
Jakob receives his master degree!
Jakob's thesis is titled "Resonant state expansion applied to fiber Fabry-Pérot resonators".
Welcome to Roberts Berkis!
Roberts received his master’s in physics at the University of Latvia’s Faculty of Physics, Mathematics and Optometry, where he studied whispering-gallery-mode microresonators and their applications. His PhD research in our group will focus on integrating fiber-based optical cavities into trapped-ion quantum networks.
Tracy interviewed on the Nature podcast
Tracy was interviewed about the quantum internet on the Nature podcast, which was reporting on entanglement of remote quantum memories in Jian-Wei Pan's group.
Welcome to Jakob Wahl!
Jakob has joined the fiber cavity experiment as a master's student. Some of our fiber cavity properties can't be explained using existing mathematical models, and Jakob is developing new models to investigate this question.
Our group has received funding from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
The funding will be used to develop nodes for trapped-ion quantum networks based on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), as part of an Austrian research initiative on Quantum Research and Technology (QFTE).
Klemens receives his PhD!
Congratulations to Klemens Schüppert on his PhD thesis! Klemens's thesis is titled "Quantum Interface - A fiber cavity perpendicular to a linear ion trap".
Dmitry receives an ESQ Discovery Project grant
Congratulations to Dmitry Bykov on receiving an ESQ Discovery Project grant! Dmitry was awarded a grant by the Erwin Schrödinger Center for Science and Technology for his upcoming project on sympathetic detection and cooling of nanoparticles levitated in a Paul trap.
Welcome to Katharina Heidegger!
Katharina has joined the nanospheres experiment as a master's student. She will study and implement a novel optical imaging technique for enhancing our particle’s detection efficiency.
Welcome to Pritom Paul!
Pritom has studied his Master at the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology and he has joined the group as PhD student. He will work on the project "Mems-based devices for trapped-ion quantum network nodes".
Welcome to Simon Baier!
Simon finished his PhD study at the University of Innsbruck in 2018. As an Erwin-Schrödinger Fellow in the project “Spins in Diamond for a Quantum network” he moved to TU Delft. During the return year of his fellowship he now joins the group to work on remote ion-ion entanglement.