Statistical physics, a century-old theory, is probably one of the most powerful constructions of physics. It predicts that the equilibrium properties of any system composed of a large number of particles depend only on a handful of macroscopic parameters, no matter what the particles are and how they exactly interact with each other. But the question of how many-body systems relax towards such equilibrium states remains largely unsolved. This problem is especially acute for quantum systems, which evolve in a much larger configuration space than classical systems and obey fundamentally non-local equations of motion. Despite the formidable complexity of quantum dynamics, recent theoretical advances have put forward a remarkably simple picture: the dynamics of closed quantum many-body systems would be essentially local, meaning that it would always take a finite time for correlations between two distant regions of space to reach their equilibrium value. This form of locality would be an emergent property of the whole system, similar to spontaneous symmetry breaking, and have its origin in the propagation of quasi-particle excitations. The fact is, however, that only few observations to date directly confirm this scenario. In particular, the role played by the dimensionality of the system and the range of the inter-particle interaction is largely unknown. The concept of this project is to take advantage of the great versatility of ultra-cold atom systems to investigate experimentally the relaxation dynamics in regimes well beyond the boundaries of our current knowledge. We will focus our attention on two-dimensional systems in which the particles interact through both short- and long-range potentials, when all previous experiments were bound to one-dimensional systems. The realisation of the project will hinge on the construction of a new-generation quantum gas microscope experiment for strontium gases. Amongst the innovative experimental techniques that we will develop for this project is the electronic state hybridisation with Rydberg states, called Rydberg dressing, which will enable us to shape the interaction potential between the atoms.

Optical means for stimulating and monitoring neuronal activity have provided a lot of insight in neurophysiology lately toward our understanding on how brain works. Optogenetic actuators, calcium or voltage imaging probes and other molecular tools combined with advanced microscopies allowed ‘all-optical’ readout and manipulation of neural circuits. Yet, important challenges remain to be overcome to achieve full optical neuronal control, concerning reliable delivery and expression of sensors and actuators in the same neurons, elimination of cross-talk between the imaging and manipulation channels, and achieving recording and manipulation each with single-neuron and single-action-potential precision. SLALLOM is a concerted attempt between two academic (Wavefront-Engineering Microscopy group; WEM, Neurophotonics Lab. and Lasers group, Charles Fabry Laboratory; LCF) and two industrial partners (Amplitude Systemes; AS, ALPhANOV) aiming to remedy the last two challenges. The central idea of SLALLOM is to develop a novel single-light-source ‘all-optical’ two-photon computer-generated holography (CGH) microscope using an innovative frequency-converted dual-output directly diode pumped Thulium (Tm)-doped fiber amplifier for three-dimensional (3D) multicell excitation and monitoring. The proposed laser system aims at the disruption of current laser technology used for 2-photon imaging and activation in optogenetic studies. Indeed, mature laser technologies suffer from drawbacks (e.g. lack of energy, absence of repetition rate tunability, excitation wavelength not matching the 2-photon absorption spectra peak of most molecular tools) that prevent their use for massive parallelization of neuron manipulation. We therefore propose a cutting-edge dual-branch ultrafast fiber laser system operating in the 920-975 nm wavelength range. This laser system steps away from conventional laser technologies (e.g. Ti:sapphire laser, Ytterbium fiber laser) and builds upon frequency upconversion of Tm-doped ultrafast fiber amplifiers seeded by a frequency-shifted Erbium oscillator. The two branch parameters will be optimized for their respective goal: imaging with >5 W, 40 MHz and 100 fs and photoactivation with >5 W, 10 µJ and 100 fs. A 3D-CGH microscope appropriately modified for addressing a large excitation field, will be assembled together with a 2-photon scanning system for 3D structure or functional imaging of neuronal activity, with genetic reporters. The developed laser will be used as a single-laser source for both imaging and stimulation, aiming to treat the cross-talk between these modalities by exploiting the superior temporal resolution provided by CGH in combination with highly-efficient fast-kinetic opsins. The microscope will be used to follow brain complexity in the visual cortex in vivo at high spatiotemporal resolution. The project, led with the WEM group, forerunner in developing advanced optical methods for neuronal stimulation, gathers specific and complementary skills from four partners whose expertise is recognized at international level. The WEM group has proposed about ten years ago the application of spatiotemporal light patterning with CGH and temporal focusing as a means of precisely parallel targeting cells groups, enabling photostimulation at high spatio-temporal precision. LCF is widely acknowledged as a major actor of the research in diode-pumped ultrafast lasers. ALPhANOV is a French technological center specialized in the development of innovative high-power fiber laser, especially for ultra-short pulse amplification. Finally, AS is the world leading company providing integrated, industrial-grade ultrafast laser systems, and has a long-standing collaboration with LCF through a common laboratory. SLALLOM consortium will demonstrate a reliable ground-breaking ultrafast laser source adapted to a 3D-CGH microscope to study the brain activity in vivo at high spatiotemporal resolution with scientific and industrial outcomes.

Quantum Control attempts to apply and extend the principles already used for classical control systems to the quantum domain. In this way we hope to establish a control theory specifically dedicated to regulating quantum systems. This proposal addresses some key problems related to the control of open quantum systems by applying quantum feedback control. Open quantum systems are quantum systems in interaction with an environment. This interaction perturbs the system states and causes loss of information from the system to the environment. However by applying quantum feedback control, the system can “fight” against this loss of information. The main obstacle is that standard strategies from classical control are not immediately applicable to quantum systems. While there has been much development on the theoretical side, there remain key open questions concerning optimality, robustness, and best design methods for dealing with generic quantum models which can be implemented in concrete experiments with less difficulties. The first objective of Q-COAST is to develop more efficient and robust strategies for quantum feedback design applied to open quantum systems. As a second objective, we investigate the situation where the inputs are in non-classical states, the case where the generalization from the classical to the quantum case becomes more difficult. Such states are critically important for scalable quantum information processing. Our third objective is to go beyond the existing tools to design estimators and controllers. This will be achieved by introducing new pathways through the interaction between fields of quantum statistical mechanics, quantum information geometry, quantum filtering, and quantum feedback control. The final goal is to develop further numerical simulations of quantum components as well as implementing our proposed strategies in real experiments. The experimental implementations can be realized as the project will involve collaboration with leading experimental groups who have been successfully applying feedback control theoretic principles to actual quantum systems.

Despite the tremendous interest of the scientific community on photovoltaic solar cells based on hybrid perovskites, many physical phenomena are still not fully understood and subject of controversy, such as the role of electrode/perovskite contact quality. The HYPERSOL project intends to introduce new solutions to improve the interface quality of hybrid perovskites solar cells in order to pin the quasi Fermi levels at Ec and Ev so as to extend the open circuit voltage at the thermodynamic limit for a single junction. Because the Voc in such devices is currently between 1 and 1.1V, we can expect an increase of about 30% in the PCE compared to current devices. To this aim, new dopants and customized self-assembled monolayers will be synthesized and introduced into state-of-the-art devices. Advanced characterization techniques will be used to construct a physical model allowing a complete description of the physics of hybrid perovskites solar cells and their optimization.

In a society where identity theft is a criminogenic phenomenon that threatens all sectors of activity, with considerable economic impact, people identification is of great importance. The objective of this project is to develop innovative secure printing solutions for visual authentication of physical ID documents to prevent their counterfeiting and forgery. SLICID aims at developing a competitive solution based on a combination of academic and industrial expertise. This solution is based on the elaboration of a specific wrinkled multilayer stack of inorganic materials inserted inside the ID document. The functionalities of this stack will be to provide highly contrasted and angle-controlled colors after laser processing. SLICID relies on different breakthroughs and innovations: (1) laser texturing of an inorganic multilayer on a PC sheet to get specific scattering patterns; (2) obtaining highly saturated colors, written by laser, from embedded metallic nanoparticles in an optical interference coating; (3) laser printing of multiplexed images to display different images independently in the different scattering directions; (4) elaboration of numerical tools to simulate the electromagnetic response of nonplanar disordered ensembles of nanoparticles in nonplanar layered environments. The proposed technology allows complete customization that will define a new level of security for ID documents. To reach this goal, SLICID gathers academics and companies with complementary expertise. It will benefit from the know-how and expertise of LabHC in color management, laser-matter interaction, plasmonics and image processing, of HID in card elaboration, laser processing and security documents, of Institut Fresnel in laser processing, multiphysical modeling and scattering measurements, of ILM in electromagnetic modeling and color rendering, and of IREIS in thin film deposition and simulations for optical applications.