In close collaboration with the group of Dominique Bougeard and with Cristiano Ciuti (Université de Paris), we managed to switch off deep-strong light-matter coupling much faster than a cycle of light. Our breakthrough provides a very unusual glimpse behind the virtual photon dress of electrons, which helps unravelling the nature of vacuum fluctuations. In the future, even chemical reactions or superconductivity may be triggered merely by abrupt modification of the quantum vacuum.
In a collaboration with the groups of Ermin Malic, John Lupton, and Janina Maultzsch, we resolved the internal atom-like structure of excitons in a stack of two atomically thin monolayers of WSe2. Merely by changing the stacking angle, we find a drastic renormalization of the binding energy and lifetime as well as a highly tunable exciton-exciton interaction. These results pave the way for tailoring novel phases of matter in a broad range of van der Waals heterostructures.
Congratulations to Christoph Lange who has just started a new chair entitled "THz spectroscopy" at the Technische Universit?t Dortmund, beginning April 1, 2020. In his new group, Christoph will pursue new directions of THz cavity quantum electrodynamics on the subcycle scale. We wish him all the best for a successful start and look forward to continuing our successful collaboration!...
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Successful conclusion of the winter term 2019/2020: Our lecture on solid state physics has been awarded with the Best Lecture Award of the Faculty of Physics.
Image: Fabian Mooshammer (tutor and stand-in lecturer), Rupert Huber (professor), and Dominik Peller (tutor and stand-in lecturer) ...
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We can now quantify the electric field distribution in the vicinity of an oscillating tip of a near-field microscope, which is a crucial prerequisite for performing quantitative nano-tomography and for expanding the limits of the lateral resolution.