Optical devices & methods

We aim to convert our scientific research into useful tools for experiment and analysis. Ranging from computational methods, through experimental techniques, to novel tools and instruments.

The optical systems we develop range in size from table top (such as photonics for biomedicine), through laboratory-sized (see optical experiments at dilution refrigerator temperatures) to facility scale, such as phase-locked X-ray free-electron laser pulses. Our vision is to combine these different scales as building blocks in our research, as well as to make them available to others.

A perfect X-ray beam splitter and its applications to time-domain interferometry and quantum optics exploiting free-electron lasers
S. Reiche, G. Knopp, B. Pedrini, E. Prat, G. Aeppli, S. Gerber
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 119, e2117906119 (2022)

Taking advantage of multiplet structure for lineshape analysis in Fourier space
A. Beckert, H. Sigg, G. Aeppli
Opt. Express 28, 24937 (2020)

Virus lasers for biological detection
J. E. Hales, G. Matmon, P. A. Dalby, J. M. Ward, G. Aeppli
Nat. Commun. 10, 3594 (2019)

Reiche, Aeppli and Gerber

Opening the door to X-ray quantum optics

The 'perfect' X-ray beam-splitter: Researchers at SwissFEL have an ingenious solution to produce coherent copies of pulses, facilitating a realm of new X-ray techniques.

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