Romain Quidant

Institut de Ciències Fotòniques

Engineering Sciences

I received a PhD in Physics (2002) from the University of Dijon, in France. Right after defending my thesis, I joined ICFO as a postdoctoral researcher. This was the year of its creation and I was lucky enough to get actively involved into the early developments of the Institute. In 2006, I was appointed junior Professor (tenure-track) and group leader of the Plasmon NanoOptics group at ICFO. In 2009, I became tenure Professor both at ICFO and ICREA. While my core expertise is in fundamental nano-optics, I am very much interested in multidisciplinary research, interfacing physics with other disciplines of science, as well as in technology transfer. I am recipient of 4 ERC grants (StG2010, PoC2011, PoC2015 and CoG2015) and several international and national prizes (Fresnel2009, City of BCN2010, ICO2012, CAT2014, BS2017). Since 2014, I serve as an associate editor for ACSPhotonics (American Chemical Society).


Research interests

Our research focuses on nano-optics, at the interface between Photonics (the science of light) and Nanotechnology. We use the unique optical properties of nanostructures as an enabling toolbox to design solutions to scientific and technological challenges, in a wide set of disciplines, from fundamental physics to biotechnology and medicine. This makes our group highly multidisciplinary and involved in both basic and applied research. The most fundamental part of our work is mainly directed towards enhanced light/matter interaction and quantum physics. From a more applied viewpoint, our team investigates news strategies to control light and heat at the nanometer scale for biomedical applications, including lab-on-a-chip technology and targeted hyperthermia. We are also extensively involved in tech-transfer, with three technologies being incubated in the ICFO KTT Launch pad.

Selected publications

– Bermúdez-Ureña E, Tutuncuoglu G, Cuerda J, Smith CLC, Bravo-Abad J, Bozhevolnyi S, Fontcuberta i Morral A, García-Vidal FJ & Quidant R 2017, ‘Plasmonic waveguide-integrated nanowire laser’, NanoLetters, 17, 2, 747 – 754.

– Yavas O, Svedendahl M, Dobosz P, Sanz V & Quidant R 2017, ‘On-a-chip Biosensing Based on All-Dielectric Nanoresonators‘, Nano Letters, 17, 4421 – 4426.

– Rondin L, Gieseler J, Ricci F, Quidant R, Dellago C & Novotny L 2017, ‘Direct measurement of Kramers turnover with a levitated nanoparticle‘, Nature Nanotechnol., 1130-1133.

– Ricci F, Rica R A, Spasenovic M, Gieseler J, Rondin L, Novotny L & Quidant R 2017, ‘Optically levitated nanoparticle as a model system for stochastic bistable dynamics‘, Nature Commun., 8, 15141.

Selected research activities

  • Chair of the NANOP2017 international conference, Barcelona, Sep 13-15 2017 which gathered more than 250 international experts in the field of nano-optics.
  • Co-chair of the ICFO Master School on Optical Trapping and Manipulation and the Symposium on New Frontiers in Optical Trapping (in honour of Pr. Dmitri Petrov), Barcelona, Jul 3-7 2017.
  • Involved in several scientific communication and outreach actions directed to University students, school pupils and general public.