People

Michel Devoret graduated from Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications in Paris in 1975 and started graduate work in molecular quantum physics at the University of Orsay. He then joined Professor Anatole Abragam’s laboratory in the Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique (CEA) at Saclay to work on nuclear magnetic resonance in solid hydrogen, and received his PhD from Paris University in 1982. Subsequently, he spent two post-doctoral years working under Prof. John Clarke’s guidance at the University of California, Berkeley, with John Martinis, who was a PhD student at that time. In a series of experiments, the trio showed that a Josephson tunnel junction could, under a controlled microwave environment, behave as an artificial atom “with wires”, the basis of what is now known as a superconducting quantum bit. Michel Devoret pursued this research on quantum mechanical electronics upon his return to Saclay, starting his own group with Daniel Esteve and Cristian Urbina. The main achievements of the “quantronics group”, in this period of his career, were the measurement of the traversal time of tunneling, the invention of the single electron pump, the first measurement of the effect of atomic valence on the conductance of a single atom, and the first observation of the Ramsey fringes of a superconducting artificial atom named quantronium. He was promoted director of research at CEA-Saclay in 1995, and in 2002 he joined Yale University as a full professor. In 2007, Michel was appointed to the College de France. He gave there every year new cycles of lectures on quantum mesoscopic physics until 2012.

From 2002 to 2024, as a professor in the Applied Physics Department at Yale University, Michel Devoret has focused his research on experimental solid-state physics with emphasis on quantum information processing. In the new type of electronics his lab develops, not only electrical collective degrees of freedom like currents and voltages behave quantum mechanically, but single microwave photons can be made to interact controllably with artificial atoms. Such mesoscopic processes are particularly important in quantum circuits based on Josephson tunnel junctions combined with superconducting resonators, which are now viewed as one of the main platforms for the implementation of quantum information processors. Michel has contributed, in collaboration with his Yale colleagues Rob Schoelkopf, Leonid Glazman and Steven Girvin, to the invention of two new artificial superconducting atoms, the transmon and the fluxonium. Also, after having developed new types of amplifiers reaching the quantum limit, he employed them to determine the fundamental back-action of measurements. In particular, Michel’s team showed that it was possible to stop a quantum jump in its flight and reverse it. The team also recently realized the full quantum error correction of a superconducting qubit past the break-even point. In 2022, Michel became a part-time advisor at Google Quantum AI. He was appointed chief scientist of this team  in 2023. 

In the summer of 2024, Michel Devoret’s lab partly moved to UC Santa Barbara (UCSB). His new research group in California will focus on quantum sensing and quantum measurements. Michel will teach in the Physics Department at UCSB, where he has a part-time appointment.

Michel Devoret is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2003), a member of the French Academy of Sciences (2008) and a member of the National Academy of Science (20220. Michel has received the Ampere Prize of the French Academy of Science (together with Daniel Esteve, 1991), the Descartes-Huygens Prize of the Royal Academy of Science of the Netherlands (1996) and the Europhysics-Agilent Prize of the European Physical Society (together with Daniel Esteve, Hans Mooij and Yasunobu Nakamura, 2004). He is also a recipient of the John Stewart Bell Prize, which he received jointly with Rob Schoelkopf in 2013. In 2014, together with John Martinis and Rob Schoelkopf, he was awarded the Fritz London Memorial Prize. He received the Olli Lounaasma Prize in 2016, the Micius Prize in 2020, with John Clarke and Yasunobu Nakamura. In 2023, he was awarded with Rob Schoelkopf the Comstock Prize of the National Academy of Science. In 2025, Michel Devoret, together with John Clarke and John Martinis, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.

Liam Cohen is currently a post doc working in the QuMuLab on high kinetic inductance materials and novel Josephson junctions for high frequency and hybrid quantum circuits.   He did his PhD at UCSB with Professor Andrea Young studying the fractional quantum Hall effect in graphene van der Waals heterostructures.  His prior work focused on fabricating quantum point contacts, quantum dots, and Fabry-Perot interferometers to study anyon dynamics.  He hopes in the future to combine high-frequency spectroscopy with van der Waals materials to interrogate the growing array of graphitic superconductors, explore phases of matter that may host non-abelian anyons, and experiment with coherent quantum Hall based tunnel junctions in exciton condensates.

Zhixin Wang joined QumuLab as a postdoc in Fall 2024. With his research
background in the experiments and theory of superconducting quantum circuits and hybrid
quantum systems, he is currently enthusiastic about applying novel mesoscopic quantum
devices and microwave quantum measurement techniques to quantum sensing and quantum
computing challenges. Zhixin obtained his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Tsinghua
University and his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Yale University. Prior to moving to Santa
Barbara, he worked with Zurich Instruments as an Application Scientist on quantum computing
control systems. When needing a brief retreat from science, he enjoys walking in old cities and
getting lost in bookstores, museums, and concert halls

Max grew up in the suburbs of Stuttgart, Germany, and received his bachelor's and master's degrees in
physics from ETH Zurich. For his master’s thesis, he researched TLS mitigation in Prof. Oskar
Painter’s group at Caltech. Max then joined Yale University to work on Kerr-cat qubits, focusing on the
implementation of a bias-preserving CNOT gate, investigating effects that limit cat qubit lifetimes, and
studying applications to analog simulations of chemistry. At UCSB, his interests revolve around TLS
and ways to reduce their impact. Outside of the lab, he enjoys playing soccer and skiing in winter.

Sofia grew up in Zaragoza, Spain. She received her Bachelor's degree in Physics from Imperial College London, and her Master's degree in Theoretical Physics from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Sofia is interested in various aspects of condensed matter and quantum information, from theoretical questions to experimental implementations. In the past, she has worked on the development of numerical methods for quantum many body systems, such as tensor networks. At the moment she is working on high frequency trans amplification. Outside of he lab she likes to work out.

Luke is a first-year physics PhD student at UCSB. In 2023 he graduated with a dual degree in mathematics and physics from Yale, where he worked under Michel Devoret while studying parametric processes in superconducting circuits. Before coming to UCSB he worked under Steven Girvin to design state preparation protocols using continuous variable quantum algorithms. He is passionate about the intersection of theory and experiment and is excited to work at this interface during his PhD. Outside of the lab he enjoys playing piano, throwing frisbee, and listening to others share their life stories.

Vivek grew up in Pune (India) and Chicago. He received his B.A.Sc. in Engineering Science, specializing in Engineering Physics, from the University of Toronto. For his bachelor's thesis, he designed 3D-integrated superconducting qubits for crosstalk mitigation in Prof. Andreas Wallraff's group at ETH Zurich. Vivek joined QumuLab at UCSB as a physics PhD student in 2025. He is excited by the device-level design and nanofabrication of quantum computing hardware and by the pursuit of novel mesoscopic quantum phenomena for quantum information science. Outside the lab and cleanroom, he enjoys running, being in the mountains, and playing the trumpet.