The Laboratoire de Physique des Solides (LPS, CNRS – Université Paris-Saclay) warmly congratulates Julien Basset on the successful defense of his Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches (HDR), entitled:
“Out-of-equilibrium dynamics of metallic Josephson junctions and electron-photon coupling in mesoscopic quantum circuits”
In his HDR, Julien Basset presented a body of research devoted to nonequilibrium phenomena in mesoscopic superconducting and semiconductor quantum circuits, structured around two main research directions.
The first focuses on the dynamics of metallic Josephson junctions driven out of equilibrium. This work investigates diffusive superconductor–normal metal–superconductor (SNS) Josephson junctions subjected to strong perturbations, such as microwave irradiation and the stochastic injection of high-energy quasiparticles. These studies provide new insights into how nonequilibrium excitations modify the Andreev spectrum and the phase dynamics of Josephson junctions.
The second research direction explores electron–photon coupling in mesoscopic quantum circuits. It ranges from semiconductor double quantum dots coupled to microwave cavities in the weak-coupling regime to the development of high-kinetic-inductance superconducting materials enabling high-impedance resonators and stronger light–matter interactions. These advances have contributed to significant progress in quantum bath engineering, efficient photon-to-electron conversion, and the continuous detection of single microwave photons.
The HDR committee brought together internationally recognized experts in mesoscopic physics and quantum technologies:
- Jukka Pekola (Aalto University, Finland) – Reviewer
- Clemens Winkelmann (CEA Grenoble, France) – Reviewer
- Hugues Pothier (CEA Saclay, France) – Reviewer
- Anne Anthore (C2N – Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies, Palaiseau, France) – Examiner
- Olivier Buisson (CNRS, Grenoble, France) – Examiner
The LPS warmly congratulates Julien Basset on this important academic achievement and thanks the members of the committee for their valuable contributions and stimulating scientific discussions.