Hot Topics in Quantum Nanoscience and Hot Topics in Bionanoscience

Course Content: Speakers from all over the world are invited to present pedagogical introductions to their field with an emphasis on basic concepts. Apart from an introductory lecture, the participants of this course will have an additional discussion with the invited speaker. During that extra hour, they will discuss a recent paper and the holy grails of the field.

Exemplary topics are: topological insulators, mesoscopic quantum gravity, string theory for condensed matter, measurement-based quantum computing, quantum-limited sensors, Majorana Fermions, fast-light with single photons, etc., etc.

Audience: The tutorial, as an one hour lecture, is open for everyone to attend. The second hour is be reserved as a discussion hour with the lecturer for the registered class of PhD students and postdocs.

Schedule: throughout the year, about 5 hot topics sessions will be organised. Announcements for coming sessions will appear on the Casimir website and in the Casimir Newsletter. The overview in the below gives an impression of the hot topics sessions that took place over the past years. Update (13 December 2020): until further notice, we won't host any hot topics sessions soon. Please consult the Casimir coordinator if you want to receive a certificate for the sessions you took in the past (1 GSC per session).

Current coordinators: if you have any suggestions for a hot topics session contact the coordinators: dr. Greg Bokinsky (g.e.bokinsky@tudelft.nl) for Bionanoscience-related topics or dr. Tim Taminiau (T.H.Taminiau@tudelft.nl) for Hot Topics in Quantum Nanoscience.   

Hot topics sessions we have organized in the past are: (click on the links for more information)

7 February 2020, Taekjip Ha: "Measuring DNA Mechanics on the genome".

24 May 2019, Joanna Aizenberg: 'Everything SLIPS: Design of Novel Omniphobic Materials'

3 April 2019, Erwin Frey: 'Self-assembly: How it (may) work in non-equilibrium'
Host: Martin Depken 

14 December 2018, Peter Zoller: 'Measuring Renyi Entropies (Entanglement) in Quantum Simulators'
Host: Tim Taminiau

6 November 2018, John Pendry: 'Compacted dimensions & singular plasmonic surfaces'
Host: Tim Taminiau

19 October 2018, David Awschalom: 'Latest progress with defects in silicon carbide'
Host: Tim Taminiau

15 June 2018, Tim Mitchison: 'Microtubules and cell organization'
Hosts: Louis Reese and Vladimir Volkov

23 May 2018, Tom Lubensky: 'Introduction to Topological Mechanics'
Host: Tim Taminiau

30 June 2017, Alain Aspect: 'Landmarks in quantum optics: from photons to atoms'
Host: Simon Gröblacher

2 June 2017, Philip Nelson: 'Imaging as inference'
Host: Timon Idema

3 March 2017, Markus Aspelmeyer: 'Quantum tests of gravity'
Host: Simon Gröblacher

12 December 2016, Matthias Troyer: 'Quantum annealing'
Host: Tim Taminiau

2 December 2016, Steven Block: 'Simultaneous use of optical-force spectroscopy and FRET on the TPP riboswitch'
Host: Elio Abbondanzieri

14 October 2016, Chris Monroe: 'Quantum Information Science with Trapped Atoms'
Host: Tim Taminiau

26 April 2016, Martin Ackermann: 'Bacterial memory'
Host: Hans Tanke 

26 June 2015, Jack Szostak: 'Towards recreating a prebiotically plausible protocell'
Host: Cees Dekker

19 June 2015, Jin-Soo Kim: 'Programmable nucleases'
Host: Chirlmin Joo

23 April 2015, Philippe Bastiaens: 'Recursion and the self organisation of intracellular reaction patterns'
Host: Hans Tanke

17 April 2015, Laurens Molenkamp 'Zero-energy Andreev bound states in a HgTe-based topological Josephson junction'
Host: Leo Kouwenhoven 

10 April 2015, Harold Erickson 'FtsZ-driven cell division in E coli bacteria and in synthetic cells'
Host: Cees Dekker

12 March 2015, Gunnar von Heijne 'Forces acting on nascent polypeptide chains during co-translational protein translocation and folding'
Host: Marie-Eve Aubin Tam

29 January 2015, Khalid Salaita 'Fluorescence-based force sensing'
Host: Marie-Eve Aubin-Tam

4 December 2014, Uwe Sauer 'Coordination of microbial metabolism'
Host: Greg Bokinsky

7 November 2014, Seth Lloyd 'Quantum machine learning algorithms'
Host: Leo DiCarlo

10 October 2014, Charles Kane 'The Time Reversal Invariant Fractional Josephson Effect'
Host: Leo Kouwenhoven

13 June 2014, Eric Betzig 'Super-resolution microscopy: the good, the bad, and the ugly'
Host: Hans Tanke 

4 April 2014, Hongkun Park 'Quantum Optoplasmonics and Diamond Based Sensing'
Host: Leo Kouwenhoven

25 March 2014, Karl van Bibber 'Ultrasensitive Searches for the Axion'
Host: Ana Achúcarro

21 November 2013, Laurens Molenkamp 'HgTe as a topological insulator'
Host: Tjerk Oosterkamp

14 June 2013, Charles Marcus 'The resonant exchange qubit'
Host: Leo Kouwenhoven

26 April 2013, Michael Wimmer 'Majorana fermions in condensed matter'
Host: Gary Steele

8 March 2013, Wolfgang Ketterle 'Towards quantum magnetism with ultracold atoms'

29 June 2012, Konstya Novoselov "Heterostructures based on 2D crystals"
Host: Leo Kouwenhoven

28 November 2011, Leonid Glazman

4 October 2011, Andrew Cleland "Quantum mechanics in mechanical systems"
Host: Gary Steele

23 September 2011, Paul McEuen "NanoPhotonics in Nanotubes and Graphene"
Host: Leo Kouwenhoven

15 April 2011, Ali Yazdani, “Momentum-resolved STM”
Host: Leo Kouwenhoven

29 March 2011, Leo DiCarlo “Introductory lecture on Circuit-QED”
Host: Gary Steele