EDPY News and events

Front cover of the book “Alfonso Baldereschi : son heritage scientifique et humain”, edited by Wanda Andreoni, Alfredo Pasquarello and Andrea Testa (EPFL Press, Lausanne, 2025).

A book honoring Alfonso Baldereschi

— A new, open-access book that explores the groundbreaking work and enduring influence of former EPFL physicist Alfonso Baldereschi is now freely available to the global scientific community.

© 2025 EPFL

Promotion of Prof. Vincenzo Savona

— The Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology has announced the promotion of Prof. Vincenzo Savona to Full Professor of Physics. 

© 2025 EPFL / Laboratory for Experimental Museology (EM+)

A new shape to tame fusion's hottest challenge

— Don’t burn the wall! That phrase sums up one of fusion’s most pressing challenges: protecting reactor walls from the extreme heat of plasma. Physicists at EPFL now report a new approach to address this major obstacle. By altering the magnetic shape inside a tokamak, they have discovered a new form of plasma radiation. This breakthrough could provide a far more reliable way to handle the fusion exhaust power. The research has been recently published in Physical Review Letters and featured in APS Physics Magazine.

A sketch of the frequency-estimation protocol © 2025 EPFL Hybrid Quantum Circuits Laboratory

A new level of precision in quantum sensing

— A team of researchers at EPFL has achieved a breakthrough by showing how quantum phase transitions, sudden changes in the state of a quantum systems, can be used to dramatically enhance sensing precision. Their findings could pave the way for a new class of ultra-sensitive quantum sensors.

A metamaterial developed by Mathieu Padlewski (left), Romain Fleury and Hervé Lissek (right). © 2025 EPFL / Alain Herzog

Listen to quantum atoms talk together thanks to acoustics

— To get around the constraints of quantum physics, EPFL researchers have built a new acoustic system to study the way the minuscule atoms of condensed matter talk together. They hope to one day build an acoustic version of a quantum computer.


Past & present at one table…
EDPY Program directors (left to right): Prof. O. Schneider (2009 – 2014), Prof. V. Savona (2015 – 2018), Prof. F. Mila (2018 – present)

Klaus Kern celebrates the 100th thesis of his laboratory!

For the past 28 years, Klaus Kern has directed his doctoral students, young researchers in the training phase, leaving them all the freedom required to be successful in developing their ideas.

This important milestone, a first at EPFL, highlights not only the huge research activity led in his laboratory, but also his qualities in attracting talented scientists to our school.

Indeed, one of the important roles of laboratories hosted by academic institutions such as EPFL is to train the next generation of scientists and leaders be it in the fields of academic research, entrepreneurship, or the society at large.

In the frame of the Doctoral Program in Physics, we wish him a successful continuation to this 100th and we congratulate him and all the people in his department for this exceptional achievement.

 
Photo: Shai Mangel (EDMX – 100th), Klaus Kern, Anna M. Roslawska (EDPY – 99th)