Alaric's paper has been accepted for publication in Nature Communications. This paper has been a long time in the making, but the significance and impact of this work is likely to be significant. As one of the four reviewers wrote, "Scientifically and technically, the findings and the methodology are inspiring." We will take that!
Although we are no strangers to Nature journals, this publication included three firsts:
1. We have published all related experimental datasets. The paper includes a link to 72 spectra deposited for unrestricted access on Xenodo. Take a look at the datasets!
2. All the information that has been exchanged with the reviewers is published online. That includes the multiple reports prepared by all four reviewers and our responses. Be warned, the file is 31 pages long.
3. Finally, two out of the four reviewers have accepted to be identified on the paper's online access page. I find the concept interesting and refreshing, and I am curious to see how this will change the review process in the long term. That being said, it was probably a wise decision for Reviewer #3 to remain anonymous ;).
8.6 M$ equipment grant received!
Fantastic news, our Poly-UBC grant was selected for full funding. The award for this proposal entitled "Mid-Infrared Quantum Sensing and Spectroscopy (MIR-QUEST)" is quite substantial, 8.6 M$! Our share include tunable infrared lasers for spectroscopy and quantum control along with sets of superconducting single-photon detectors.
Clément Gradziel, M.Sc.
Clément successfully presented his Master's thesis entitled "Raman spectroscopy of spatially confined phonon-polaritons in GaSe Van der Walls crystals." Clément is moving back home and will soon start a Ph.D. on cold atoms.
Funding for more phonon-polariton research
"Photonique Quantique Québec" now funds our research on phonon-polaritons. This two-year grant will allow studying extreme confinement of phonon polaritons in Van der Wall crystals. This is work will be done in collaboration with Sean Molesky (Polytechnique) and Andreas Ruediger (INRS). Sean will explore the means to extend Raman scattering techniques to non-centrosymmetric crystals and Andreas will apply near-field Raman techniques to the study of phonon polaritons at the nanoscale.