Home | Zu Lab | Washington University in St. Louis

Exploring the quantum advantages

Welcome to Zu Lab at Department of Physics, WUSTL. Our research focuses on employing solid-state spin defects for quantum sensing, simulation, and computation.

We are looking for enthusiastic students and researchers! Please do not hesitate to contact us if you are interested in working together!
Email address: zu [at) wustl.edu

For postdoc positions, we encourage and support qualified applicant to apply for the prestigious Jaynes Fellowship in Physics at Washington University. Please contact the PI for more information.

Recent news:

March, 2025
Come to check a series of works and talk to the group members at the upcoming APS Global Summit (joint March Meeting and April Meeting).
1. “Quantum Sensors in Two-Dimensional Materials: Advantages and Applications” by Chong (invited talk at Session MAR-N19).
2. “Quantum noise spectroscopy of dynamical critical phenomena and vortex dynamics in layered cuprate superconductor” by Zhongyuan and Jaewon (Session MAR-A07).
3. “Universal Reconstruction of Local Magnetization from Magnetic Field Maps” by Changyu (Session MAR-A07).
4. “Imaging stress and magnetsm at high pressures using quamtum sensors in a two-dimensional material” by Guanghui (Session MAR-C07).
5. “Improving the Energy and Angular Resolutions of X-ray Telescopes with a Quantum Diamond Microscope” by Ephraim (Session APR-J21).
6. “Quantum Metrology for Biological Systems using the Nitrogen-Vacancy Center in Nanodiamonds” by Olivia and Shakil [Session MAR-M00 (DBIO)].
7. “Probing spin-phonon interaction of boron-vacancy centers in hexagonal boron nitride” by Reginald (Session MAR-N19).
8. “Simultaneous determination of local magnetic fields and sensor orientation with nitrogen-vacancy centers in nanodiamond” by Yizhou (Session MAR-X31).

Feb 11, 2025
Chong gave a seminar at the Department of Physics and Texas Center for Superconductivity, University of Houston on using NV centers in diamond as a new lens to see through superconductivity!

Feb 10, 2025
Chong gave a talk on our recent work on quantum noise spectroscopy of superconducting dynamics at the Quantum Technology Workshop, University of Michigan.

Feb 10, 2025
Check our latest work “Quantum noise spectroscopy of superconducting critical dynamics and vortex fluctuations in a high-temperature cuprate” on arXiv. We develop a new quantum sensing technology based on NV centers in diamond for probing low-energy dynamics in unconventional superconductivity, with detection energy and length scale complementary to existing toolsets!

Jan 21, 2025
Congrats to Guanghui and Bingtian on their work “Experimental Realization of Discrete Time Quasi-Crystals” accepted by Physical Review X.

Jan 21, 2025
Congrats to Zhongyuan and Reginald on their work “Temperature-dependent spin-phonon coupling of boron-vacancy centers in hexagonal boron nitride” published on PRB.

Jan 7, 2025
Check our latest work “Probing Stress and Magnetism at High Pressures with Two-Dimensional Quantum Sensors” on ArXiv. We integrate optical spin defects in 2D materials directly into the high-pressure chamber of a diamond anvil cell, enabling an in situ quantum sensing platform for mapping local stress and magnetism at high-pressure environment.

Dec 19, 2024
Congrats to Shiva, Changyu, Olivia and Shakil on their work “Optically-trapped-nanodiamond relaxometric detection of nanomolar paramagnetic spins in aqueous environments” published on PR Applied, and selected as the “Editors’ Suggestion”. Our first work applying quantum sensors to bio-imaging applications!

Nov 28, 2024
Check our latest work “Universal Reconstruction of Complex Magnetic Profiles with Minimum Prior Assumptions” on ArXiv. We have developed a GPU-based method to reliably reconstruct complex magnetic profiles from the quantum imaging data, and applied this method to study the paleomagnetism in moon rocks from the Apollo Mission. A true Broader Impacts of the quantum-enabled technology!

June 19, 2024
Check our collaborative work “Intrinsic high-fidelity spin polarization of charged vacancies in hexagonal boron nitride” on ArXiv.

June 13, 2024
Check our collaborative work “Quantum control and Berry phase of electron spins in rotating levitated diamonds in high vacuum” on Nature Communications.

April 24, 2024
Check our latest work “Temperature dependent spin-phonon coupling of boron-vacancy centers in hexagonal boron nitride” on arXiv!

Mar 26, 2024
Check our latest work “Experimental Realization of Discrete Time Quasi-Crystals” on arXiv!

Feb 28, 2024
Check our collaborative work “Imaging the Meissner effect in hydride superconductors using quantum sensors” on Nature.
Also see the accompanied news & views “Quantum sensor settles debate about superconductivity in hydrides“.

Jan 31, 2024
Check our latest work “Optically-Trapped Nanodiamond-Relaxometry Detection of Nanomolar Paramagnetic Spins in Aqueous Environments” on arXiv!

Jan 2, 2024
Congrats to Reginald and Shilling on their work “Isotope engineering for spin defects in van der Waals materials” published on Nature Communications!

Sep 27, 2023
Congrats to Guanghui, Reginald an Zhongyuan on their work “Quasi-Floquet Prethermalization in a Disordered Dipolar Spin Ensemble in Diamond” published on Physical Review Letters. The first PRL in our lab!