K hexagonal lattice

Our experimental setup consists of a 39K BEC in an optical honeycomb lattice. The lattice is formed by three propagating, s-polarized, blue-detuned laser beams at a wavelength of  745nm, which interfere in the xy-plane at relative angles of 120°.

Realization of Floquet topological phases

Periodic modulation is a powerful tool for the realization of topological phases in synthetic quantum systems. In our experiment we realize a periodically-driven honeycomb lattice via periodic modulation of the intensities of the individual lattice laser beams. This breaks time-reversal symmetry and leads to a rich variety of Floquet topological phases.

Real-space detection and manipulation of topological edge modes

Observation of topological edge modes

June 10, 2024

Our experimental results on edge modes have been published in Nature Physics! more

PhD theses from our team:

• Karen Wintersperger (2020): Realization of Floquet topological systems with ultracold atoms in optical honeycomb lattices
• Christoph Braun (2024): Real-space detection and manipulation of topological edge modes with ultracold atoms

Numerical & theoretical work

Here we collect research from our group that we performed together with our theory colleagues in order to develop a better understanding of the quantum many-body systems we are planning to study. more

The team

• Christoph Braun, Senior Scientist
• Dizhou Xie, PostDoc
• Alexander Hesse, PhD
• Johannes Arceri, PhD
• Moritz Hornung, PhD
• Carlo Daniel, Master student

Former members:

• Dr. Raphaël Saint-Jalm, PostDoc (now @ Institut de Physique de Nice (INPHYNI))
• Dr. Karen Wintersperger, PhD (now Research Scientist Quantum Computing @Siemens)
• Dr. Jakob Näger, PhD
• Dr. Martin Reitter, PhD
• Valentin Weyerer, Master student
• Simon Karch, Internship student (now PhD student Cs Quantum Gas Microscope)