Organisation

The laboratory is been led by Nicolas Treps since 2025. The executive committee also includes Sylvain Gigan (Deputy Director), Michel Brune, Nancy Paul Hupin, Sylvain Nascimbène (Assistant Directors), Bérengère Argence (Instrumentation), and Thierry Tardieu (Administrator).

The laboratory is mainly composed of young researchers, with nearly 60 researchers and faculty members, and over 100 Phd students and post-doc.
The laboratory is made of 11 research teams divided into 5 main areas:

– Quantum gases
– Quantum optics and quantum information
– Atoms and light in dense or complex media
– Tests of fundamental interactions and metrology
– Frontiers and applications

The laboratory includes 5 academicians and 3 active or emeritus professors at the Collège de France. It is also highly involved in teaching activities at various levels, and the quality of its faculty members is recognized through numerous nominations as junior or senior members of the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF).

The quality of the research conducted at the laboratory also relies on the skills and expertise of its technical and administrative support services. These services are organized into four units and include about twenty engineers and technicians: administrative services, executive assistance and communication, instrumentation services, and the IT department.

Administration and laboratory management

The administration department oversees and manages the laboratory’s finances, human resources, and administrative functions. It develops and monitors the management activities of the scientific teams in compliance with regulations and assists LKB members with their procedures. It produces dashboards and reports for internal monitoring and regularly interacts with the LKB’s supervisory bodies (CNRS, École Normale Supérieure, Sorbonne University, Collège de France) as well as with suppliers.
There is a secretariat located at the Sorbonne University site, another at the École Normale Supérieure site.

Executive Assistance & Communication

The executive assistant supports the director by managing governance files and acting as a link with stakeholders. She ensures the flow of information, monitors regulations, designs decision-support tools, and organizes internal events.

The communication and scientific mediation assistant contributes to the dissemination and promotion of the research conducted by laboratory and its valorization to various audiences (scientists, institutional authorities, general public, etc.). She implements internal and external communication actions and organizes events.

European projects, transfer and valorisation

The European Project Manager works alongside researchers for proposals writing, manage and coordinate the administration of various research projects requiring international, European and national funding. She also keeps a proactive watch to identify interesting calls for LKB’s researchers.

The role of the transfer and innovation engineer, recently established by the CNRS within the laboratories, is to identify and support innovative projects while strengthening relationships with industry. The engineer is also responsible for negotiating and formalizing collaborations with industrial partners, with legal support from the co-supervising institutions.

Instrumentation Services

The instrumentation services provides a wide range of techniques and expertise to design and build complex sets of instruments dedicated to the experiments conducted within the laboratory. These services cover various instrumental techniques and are divided into several specialties:

• Two mechanical services, including design and manufacturing activities, located at the Lhomond and Jussieu sites (the Collège de France has its own mechanical service)
• Two electronic services, each equipped with a design office and workshop, at each ENS and SU site
• An optics and instrumentation design office
• A glassblowing workshop

The last two services are located at the Jussieu site but provide their expertise to the whole laboratory.

The services at the Lhomond site are part of the technical and technological platforms of the physics department at ENS and are shared with the Laboratory of Physics at ENS (LPENS). Several other services from these platforms work for the LKB teams, particularly the clean room, the cryogenics platform, and the infrastructure service.

Mechanics service

The mechanics service provides technical and logistical support for the design and producing the mechanical components and assemblies needed for the laboratory’s physics experiments. It works in close collaboration with researchers to meet extremely precise demands. The technical expertise of the staff is considerable, as is their ability to design and build high-precision mechanically-welded assemblies and machine highly complex instruments, such as ultra-high-vacuum cryostats. The mechanics service is responsible for all stages of the project, from specifications through design and testing to manufacture.
The mechanics workshops are located on the Sorbonne University site, shared with the Laboratoire Jean Perrin, and at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, which is shared with the physics department.

Electronics Service

The electronics department designs and develops complex electronic systems for the laboratory’s experiments, ranging from laser source control systems to data acquisition systems, with particular expertise in homodyne detection, low-noise high-voltage amplifiers, and RF digital signal synthesis. The department’s expertise includes low-noise analog electronics (in the microvolt range), high-voltage signals (up to 1kV), and frequencies ranging from DC to microwave. Solutions can take the form of analog, digital, or mixed-signal boards.

The electronics department manages all stages of design, routing, wiring, testing, and mechanical integration of prototypes. It is also responsible for part of the maintenance and repair of commercial instruments and equipment used in experiments. Additionally, the electronics workshop oversees subcontracting for the production of certain dedicated systems.

The department has a workshop and a design office at Sorbonne University, as well as at the École Normale Supérieure. At the latter site, these facilities are shared with LPENS and are part of the physics department’s platforms.

Optics and Instrumentation Design Office

The Optical and Instrumentation Design Office consists of an electronics engineer specialized in digital technology and an optical instrumentation engineer. It provides support to research teams looking to develop experiments in optical instrumentation. The office can intervene at various stages of an experimental project by contributing to its design, monitoring, and execution, as well as in performance characterization. It offers advice and expertise, proposes technical solutions, and ensures technological monitoring.

Glassblowing Workshop

The glassblowing workshop produces cells made of borosilicate glass (Pyrex) and quartz. These cells are glass containers used in the laboratory’s physics experiments. They typically contain a noble gas or an alkali metal and feature optical windows that allow laser beams to pass through the cell.

IT Service

The IT service is responsible for managing the networks, servers, and two IT infrastructures (computing machines and workstations) for the laboratory at the École Normale Supérieure and Sorbonne University sites, as well as providing on-site IT support to users. Additionally, it works closely with the IT service of the Collège de France, the IT department (DSI) of Sorbonne University, and collaborates with the physics department at the École Normale Supérieure for the development of network infrastructures, servers, and new IT tools.