Mikael Backlund
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL·Chemistry·Early-career
Every microscope has a limit on how precisely it can tell you where a molecule is, what color it emits, or which mirror-image form it takes. Some of those limits are practical, but others come from the physics of light itself: a photon carries only so much information.
- Fields
Chemistry
Physics
- Topics
single-molecule microscopy
single-molecule spectroscopy
quantum metrology
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2030
What they work on
- Establish the fundamental limits on spatial resolution for single molecules that do not photoswitch, using quantum parameter estimation theory, which sets the best precision achievable from the emitted photons.
- Determine how well two molecules can be distinguished from the spectral and temporal properties of their emitted light, applying quantum detection theory to this discrimination task.
- Assess the fundamental limits of single-molecule chiroptical discrimination, telling left- from right-handed molecules by their interaction with light.
- Experimentally realize measurement schemes that approach these theoretical precision bounds in single-molecule spectroscopy and microscopy.
More about the research
This project asks what the true "speed limits" of single-molecule measurement are, using the mathematics of quantum metrology, the theory of how precisely any quantity can be estimated from a quantum system, and then tries to reach them in the laboratory.
Why it matters
Knowing the fundamental precision limits of optical measurement tells instrument designers which schemes are worth building and which cannot be improved. Light-based chemical measurement underpins technologies in health, defense and energy, so optimal schemes identified here could eventually support better disease diagnosis, detection of chemical weapons, or more efficient capture of energy from light. The project also aims to bring quantum information science to chemistry students and to the surrounding community.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Yamuna Phal
Colorado School of Mines, CO·Chemistry
Build a mid-infrared imaging instrument capable of non-destructive, spatially resolved analysis of chiral drug interactions inside biological tissues, using molecules' infrared absorption as a chemical fingerprint.
Mark Siemens
University of Denver, CO·Physics
Develop DeepSpiral, a super-resolution microscope that combines multiphoton excitation with single-molecule localization microscopy to image molecules at the nanometer scale up to 300 microns deep in living brain tissue.
Yu Gong
College of Charleston, SC·Physics
Generate and track topological phonons, robust lattice vibrations in crystalline quantum materials, using ultrafast optical spectroscopy and microscopy with extremely short laser pulses.
The school
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: 41 labs on PI Pages, $907M a year on research, 870 research doctorates a year.
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