Verhagen Lab

Research focus

ERC Consolidator Grant · 2022

Challenging the limits of mechanical quantum metrology

Nano- and micromechanical resonators, with their high coherence and low mass, serve as extremely good sensors of small forces and particles. They are especially powerful in combination with optical laser fields, which can measure mechanical motion down to the level where quantum mechanics is needed to describe it. The performance of mechanical quantum sensors, and in fact our ability to measure their displacement, is however limited by fundamental concepts: Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle dictates the smallest vibration that can be resolved. And time-reversal symmetry bounds the measurement rate of a sensor. In this project, I challenge both limits – evading them by making nanomechanical…

From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.