PLENARY SPEAKERS

Dmitri N. Basov (PhD 1991) is a Higgins professor and Chair of the Department of Physics at Columbia University, the Director of the DOE Energy Frontiers Research Center on Programmable Quantum Materials [since 2018] and co-director of Max Planck Society – New York Center for Nonequilibrium Quantum Phenomena [2018-2030]. He has served as a professor (1997-2016) and Chair (2010-2015) of Physics, University of California San Diego. Research interests include: physics of quantum materials, superconductivity, two-dimensional materials, infrared nano-optics. Prizes and recognitions: Sloan Fellowship (1999), Genzel Prize (2014), Humboldt research award (2009), Frank Isakson Prize, American Physical Society (2012), Moore Investigator (2014, 2020), K.J. Button Prize (2019), Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship (U.S. Department of Defense, 2019), National Academy of Sciences (2020).   

Speech Title: Tera-Herz Space-Time Metrology of Quantum Materials 

Andrea Cavalleri is the founding director of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Hamburg (Germany) and a professor of Physics at the University of Oxford (UK). After receiving a laurea degree from the University of Pavia (Italy), he held graduate, postgraduate, and research staff positions at the University of Essen (Germany), at the University of California, San Diego (US), and at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US). He joined the Oxford faculty in 2005.

He is best known for his experimental studies of the photo-induced phase transition. In recent years, his research group has developed techniques that make use of strong TeraHertz pulses to manipulate directly lattice distortions and other collective modes of solids. Through precise optical control, he has shown that ordered states like superconductivity or ferroelectricity can be induced by light at temperatures far above their equilibrium transition temperature.

Cavalleri is a recipient of the 2004 European Young Investigator Award, the 2015 Max Born Medal, the 2015 Dannie Heineman Prize (Academy of Sciences in Goettingen), the 2018 Isakson Prize (American Physical Society), the 2024 Europhysics Prize and the 2026 Stern Gerlach Medal of the German Physical Society. He is a fellow of the APS, the AAAS, the IoP and a member of the Academia Europaea.

Speech Title: Nonlinear Phononics

Giulio Cerullo is a Full Professor with the Physics Department, Politecnico di Milano, where he leads the Ultrafast Optical Spectroscopy laboratory. Prof. Cerullo’s research activity concerns on the one hand pushing our capabilities to generate and manipulate ultrashort light pulses, and on the other hand using such pulses to capture the dynamics of ultrafast events in molecular and solid-state systems.

He has published over 560 papers which have received >37000 citations (H-index: 96 on Scopus). He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, of the European Physical Society and of the Accademia dei Lincei and past Chair of the Quantum Electronics and Optics Division of the European Physical Society. He has received two ERC grants (Advanced Grant in 2012 and Synergy Grant in 2025).

He has been General Chair of the conferences CLEO/Europe 2017, Ultrafast Phenomena 2018 and the International Conference on Raman Spectroscopy 2024. In 2023, he received the Quantum Electronics Prize of the European Physical Society. He is the co-founder of two spin off companies (NIREOS and Cambridge Raman Imaging).

Speech Title: Ultrafast light-matter interactions in two-dimensional semiconductors

Jérôme Faist is full professor in the physics department of ETH since 2007. He obtained his Diploma and Ph.D. in Physics from EPFL Lausanne in 1989. He then worked as apost-doc and finally Member of Technical staff at IBM Rueschlikon (89-91) and Bell Laboratories (91-97). He was then nominated full professor in the physics institute of the University of Neuchâtel (1997).

Continuing his research as an ordinary professor in the ETH Zurich, his interests broadened from the Quantum Cascade Laser to circuit-based THz lasers, group IV Ge/Si emitters and lasers, ultrastrong light-matter coupling as well as QCL optical frequency combs, which his group demonstrated first in 2012. His key contribution to the development of the quantum cascade laser was recognized by a number of awards that include the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland prize (1994), the IEEE/LEOAS William Streifer award(1998), the Rank Prize for Electronics (1998), the National Swiss Latsis Prize (2002), the IEEE medal for the environment (2018) as well as the Julius Springer award for applied physics (2019). He is member of the NAE since 2022.

Speech Title: Controlling correlated matter with vacuum fluctuations in Terahertz resonators

Speech Title: Coming soon

Mohammad Hafezi is a Minta Martin Professor with a joint appointment in the Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering Departments at the University of Maryland and a fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute. He studied at Sharif University before completing his undergraduate degree in École Polytechnique. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University in 2009.

His research interests include quantum optics, topological physics, condensed matter, and quantum information sciences. He is best known for his original contributions in both theory and experiment in the synthesis, characterization, and application of quantum many-body and topological physics beyond electronic systems. His work spans cold atoms, superconducting qubits, and photons, and he has played a key role in shaping the field of topological photonics. More recently, his group is interested in applying theoretical and experimental quantum optics tools to correlated electron systems, with the goal of creating, manipulating, and probing exotic states of electrons in light- and vacuum-induced scenarios.

He is the recipient of several awards including the Sloan Fellowship, the Young Investigator Award of the US Naval Research Office, Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, and the Simons Foundation Investigator. He served as director and associate director of two NSF centers focused on quantum sciences.

Speech Title: Quantum optics of correlated matter or Nonlinear topological photonics

Peter Lodahl (PL) is professor in quantum physics and technology at the Niels Bohr Institute. He is the Director of the Danish National Research Foundation Center of Excellence Hybrid Quantum Networks (Hy-Q) and the Novo Nordisk Foundation center for Solid State Quantum Simulators. He is also the Founder and Chief Quantum Officer of the start-up company Sparrow Quantum that commercializes deterministic photon-emitter interfaces and today employs >50 FTEs and has successfully launched several unique quantum chip products and full plug-and-play photon source solutions. PL received a PhD in quantum physics in 2000 from University of Copenhagen and subsequently held postdoc positions at Caltech and University of Twente. He was the first to demonstrate that light emission can be fully controlled by the use of intricate photonic nanostructures. This fundamental principle ultimately enables a full deterministic quantum interface between light and matter, which PL subsequently has exploited after founding his own research group in Denmark in 2005. His group develops fundamentally new quantum hardware for the emergent field of quantum-information science such as: deterministic single-photon sources, spin- photon interfaces, and photonic quantum gates. The application areas include photonic quantum computers, quantum repeaters, and quantum key distribution towards the ultimate vision of a quantum internet.

PL is the recipient of the ERC consolidator grant (2010), ERC advanced grant (2015), ERC Synergy grant (2025), the EliteForsk Award (2016), Queen Margrethe II’s Research Award (2022), and the Into Innovation Award (2025). He has published >170 publications in leading scientific journals, given >200 invited colloquia and conference talks, holds >10 patents on photonic quantum technology, and has founded the quantum-tech start-up company Sparrow Quantum. PL has educated >35 Ph.D. students and >40 postdocs and many of them today hold highly influential positons in industry and academia. He is an elected member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters (2016) and Optica Fellow (2021).

Speech Title: Deterministic photon sources for quantum information processing 

Amalia Patanè studied at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” where she received her MScin Physics (1994) and PhD (1998). She then moved to the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nottingham to research quantum semiconductor systems. She has been Professor of Physics (since 2011) and Director of Research (2019-23) at the University of Nottingham. Since 2015, Patanè is the UK Director and Council member of the European Magnetic Field Laboratory, an international facility that develops and operates world class high magnetic field systems. Since 2018 she leads the EPI2SEM facility at Nottingham for development of atomically thin semiconductors. Her EPSRC Programme Grant (NEED2D 2025-30) brings together UK research institutions and industry to develop prototype low- energy-consumption electronic devices beyond traditional semiconductor systems. Her research achievements were recognized by the Sir Charles Vernon Boys Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics (2007), an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship (2004-09), a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship (2017-19), a Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) President’s International Fellowship Award (2018-19), and an honorary professorship at the Institute of Semiconductors, CAS, Beijing (since 2019).

Speech Title: Ultra-Fast Ultraviolet-C Photonics WithTwo-Dimensional Semiconductors

Fabio Sciarrino is Principal Investigator of the Quantum Information Lab, Department of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome. His main expertise is experimental quantum optics, computation and quantum information, and foundations of quantum mechanics. In recent years his research activity has focused on the implementation of quantum information protocols via integrated photonic circuits.
In 2012 he was awarded an ERC-Starting Grant Consolidator funded by the European Research Council for his project on integrated quantum photonics (3D-QUEST) and later in 2015 of the ERC-Proof of Concept 3D-COUNT. He was European coordinator of the Marie Curie Network PICQUE project of the Future and Emerging Technologies project QUCHIP. He is author of more than 250 publications in international journals (with more than 35 publications on Nature and Science journals) and over 20 invited presentations to national and international conferences. He has been awarded as principal investigator of ERC (European Research Council) Advanced Grant QU-BOSS.  He is leader of the Spoke “Photonic Platform for Quantum Technologies” of the Italian National Quantum Science and Technology Institute (www.nqsti.iit). Since January 2024 he is the coordinator of European Project EPIQUE (European Photonic Quantum Computer).

Speech Title: Adaptive Boson Sampling via integrated quantum photonics

Christine Silberhorn is professor at Paderborn University and spokesperson of the Institute for Photonic Quantum Systems (PhoQS). She is best known for her work on the development of integrated-optical quantum devices and photonic systems that lay the foundations for future quantum technologies, including quantum communication and quantum metrology. In the area of photonic quantum computing, she has been pioneering Gaussian Boson Sampling for scaling photonic quantum computing. She is Fellow of Optica and of the Max Planck School of Photonics.

Speech Title: Photonic quantum technologies: From integrated quantum devices to designing large complex system

Päivi Törmä is a professor in the Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University and has a MSc degree from the University of Oulu, Finland, a Master of Advanced Study degree from the University of Cambridge, U.K., and PhD in 1996 from the University of Helsinki. Her research ranges from theoretical quantum many-body physics to experiments in nanophotonics. Her work has revealed a new connection between quantum geometry and superconductivity that explains why flat bands can carry supercurrent, essential in the search for superconductors that work at high temperatures. In her experiments, Päivi has worked on strong coupling of surface plasmon polariton modes and molecules, and her group succeeded in realizing the first plasmonic Bose-Einstein condensate. She has received the ERC Advanced grant and Academy Professorship of the Research Council of Finland, and is a member of Academia Europaea.

Speech Title: Topological photonics and ultrafast dynamics in plasmonic lattices

Qihua Xiong, Professor of Physics at Tsinghua University, APS/MRS/OSA Fellows and New Cornerstone Investigator. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from Penn State University in 2006, and then pursued three years postdoctoral training at Harvard University. He started his independent career as Nanyang Assistant Professor at Nanyang Technological University in 2009, then tenured in 2014 and promoted to full professor in 2016. He relocated to Tsinghua University in 2020. He was awarded Singapore National Foundation NRF Fellowship in 2009 and NRF Investigatorship in 2014, he received Nanyang Award for Research Excellence in 2014, IPS Nanotechnology Physics Award in 2015, IUMRS Mid-career Researcher Award (2024). He was recognized by Clarivate highly cited researchers worldwide (2019-2025). His research covers a wide range of topics related to the fundamental optical processes in low-dimensional quantum materials, and their enhanced light-matter interactions in microcavities. He has published more than 370 papers in well-established journals and attracted more than 36,000 citations, with an H-index of 102. Currently, he serves as the associate editor for Nano Letters and advisor board for a number of international journals.

Speech Title: Halide Perovskite Nanophotonics and Polaritonics