Welcome to the Hensen Lab

Welcome to the Hensen Lab! We are a young dynamic experimental research group starting at the Leiden Institute of Physics.

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Our lab addresses one of the key challenges of modern physics: understanding the interface between quantum mechanics and general relativity. Recently, an experimental test was proposed that can directly witness the need to unify the two theories: observing quantum entanglement between objects that only interact through the gravitational field. A successful test would prove the existence of superpositions of space-time and have far-reaching implications on how we understand our world.

We aim to develop and characterise an experimental platform that is compatible with the requirements for such a ‘entanglement through gravity’ experiment. The objectives of the research are to trap and levitate a picogram mass, cool its centre-of-mass motion to the quantum ground state, couple its motion to a controllable qubit system and produce and measure a spatial superpositions of the mass

We are looking for passionate new PhD students, Postdocs, and Master students to join the team (more info) !

We are grateful for funding from Leiden University and from an ERC starting grant.