Biographical Sketch:
Konrad W. Lehnert is a global leader in quantum science and sensing, the fundamental physics of quantum measurements, and the development of quantum technologies based on these concepts. Lehnert is recognized for his exceptionally deep knowledge of the phenomenology of superconductivity and of mesoscopic systems in the quantum context, with particular expertise in quantum noise.
From 2003-2024, he was first an Associate Fellow, then Fellow at JILA, a joint institute of the University of Colorado and NIST. Lehnert served as JILA Chair from 2022- 2024. At JILA, he established a research group studying microwave quantum circuits, mesoscopic electronics, and quantum nanomechanics. In particular, his group pioneered measurements of electrical circuits and mechanical oscillators that reached quantum-limited sensitivity. In addition, his group developed control methods that cooled mechanical oscillators to their quantum ground state and entangled them with electrical circuits. Recently, he has applied techniques of quantum enhanced measurement and control to the search for hypothesized fundamental particles that make up dark matter.
Prior to this, Lehnert was a postdoctoral scientist at Yale from 1999-2003. At Yale, he worked with Robert Schoelkopf on qubit structures built from superconducting circuits.
Lehnert received his Ph. D. in 1999 from the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Research:
In the Lehnert Group, we build electrical and electromechanical machines and coax them into exhibiting quantum behavior. We are motivated by asking: “what is the largest and most tangible object that can be in two places at once?” In addition, we seek to use these machines to store, process, and transmit information in an essentially quantum way. Finally, we develop measurement tools for sensing feeble forces and electrical signals at the limits imposed by quantum mechanics.
Education:
Ph.D. 1999, University of California, Santa Barbara
Honors & Awards:
Lehnert has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and he held Kavli Fellowships in 2010 and 2011. In 2020, he won a highly competitive five-year Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship, the U.S. Department of Defense’s most prestigious single-investigator award. He also won the Department of Commerce Silver Medal and the Colorado Governor’s Award for High Impact Research.
Selected Publications:
- Superconducting-qubit readout via low-backaction electro-optic transduction
Delaney R., M. Urmey, S. Mittal, B.M. Brubaker, J. Kindem, P.S. Burns, C.A. Regal, and K.W. Lehnert, Nature 606, 489-493 (2022). - Efficient and Low-Backaction Quantum Measurement Using a Chip-Scale Detector
Rosenthal E.I., C.M.F. Schneider, M. Malnou, Z. Zhao, F. Leditzky, B.J. Chapman, W. Wustmann, X. Ma, D.A. Palken, M.F. Zanner, and L.R. Vale, Physical Review Letters 126, (2021). - A quantum enhanced search for dark matter axions
Backes K.M., D.A. Palken, A. Kenany, B.M. Brubaker, S.B. Cahn, A. Droster, G.C. Hilton, S. Ghosh, H. Jackson, S.K. Lamoreaux, and A.F. Leder, Nature 590, 238-242 (2021). - Non-classical energy squeezing of a macroscopic mechanical oscillator
Ma X., J.J. Viennot, S. Kotler, J.D. Teufel, and K.W. Lehnert, Nature Physics 17, 322-326 (2021). - Resolving Phonon Fock States in a Multimode Cavity with a Double-Slit Qubit
Sletten L.R., B. Moores, J.J. Viennot, and K.W. Lehnert, Physical Review X 9, 021056 (2019). - INSPIRE publications
