IEEE Shanghai NTC Chapter Hosts Cutting-Edge Symposium on Ultrafast Nano-Imaging
Shanghai, China – November 27, 2025 – The IEEE Shanghai NTC Chapter successfully organized an academic symposium titled “Ultrafast Nano-Imaging: Probing Structure, Coupling, and Dynamics of Matter on Its Natural Length and Time Scales”on the afternoon of November 27, 2025. The event featured Prof. Markus B. Raschke from the University of Colorado Boulder as the keynote speaker. IEEE Shanghai NTC Chapter Chair Prof. Weida Hu led over 40 chapter members in attending the symposium, fostering a dynamic exchange of ideas and insights.
In his opening remarks, Chair Weida Hu extended a warm welcome to Prof. Raschke on behalf of the chapter, emphasizing the significance of ultrafast nano-imaging technology in advancing nanoscience and quantum material research. He highlighted the role of such high-level academic exchanges in bridging international expertise with local innovation initiatives. During his presentation, Prof. Raschke elaborated on his team’s pioneering work in developing ultrafast scanning probe microscopy techniques, which leverage femtosecond laser pulses to achieve multiscale spatio-temporal optical nano-imaging. This approach enables the resolution of fundamental excitation processes at natural scales—femtoseconds and nanometers—in molecular and quantum materials. He illustrated the technology’s capabilities through dynamic imaging data, showcasing phenomena ranging from few-femtosecond coherent dynamics to nanosecond-scale thermal transport processes.
Prof. Raschke further detailed applications of the technology in visualizing nanoscale heterogeneity in functional materials, such as interlayer coupling dynamics in graphene and 2D semiconductors, as well as electron-phonon and polaron interactions in photovoltaic perovskites. His talk also explored extensions of nano-imaging into strong-field regimes and quantum-enhanced sensing, offering new perspectives on coherence limits in solid-state quantum systems.
The symposium concluded with an interactive Q&A session, where participants engaged Prof. Raschke in discussions on technical challenges, experimental methodologies, and potential industrial applications. Chair Weida Hu delivered closing remarks, noting that the event not only deepened participants’ understanding of ultrafast imaging technologies but also laid a foundation for future international collaborations.
Co-organized with the State Key Laboratory of Infrared Physics, the symposium marked a highlight of the IEEE Shanghai NTC Chapter’s 2025 academic series. The chapter plans to continue facilitating cross-disciplinary dialogues and promoting innovation in nanotechnology through future events.
Date and Time
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- Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics
- Shanghai, Shanghai
- China
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- Co-sponsored by Markus B. Raschke
- Starts 19 November 2025 04:00 PM UTC
- Ends 25 November 2025 04:00 PM UTC
- No Admission Charge
Speakers
University of Colorado
Ultrafast nano-imaging – probing structure, coupling, and dynamics of matter on its natural length and time scales
Understanding and ultimately controlling the properties of matter, from molecular to quantum systems, requires imaging their elementary excitations on their natural time and length scales of femtoseconds and nanometers. In order to achieve this goal, we developed scanning probe microscopy with ultrafast and shaped laser pulses for multiscale spatio-temporal optical nano-imaging. In corresponding ultrafast movies, we resolve the fundamental quantum dynamics from the fastest few-femtosecond coherent to the nanosecond thermal transport regime (Fig. 1).
I will discuss specific examples visualizing in space and time the nanoscale heterogeneity of electronic and structural processes in different classes of functional materials. Specifically, in coherent nonlinear nanoimaging of graphene and 2D semiconductors, we resolve the competing dynamics of intra- and interlayer coupling underlying the mechanisms of the emergent quantum phenomena in 2D heterostructures [1,2]. In the extension to far-from equilibrium excitation with even simultaneous spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution we resolve electron-phonon, cation-lattice, and coupled polaron dynamics in photovoltaic perovskites obtaining a real-space and real-time view of their complex photophysical response [3,4]. Lastly, we advanced nano-imaging also into the strong field, Purcell-enhanced, and strongly-coupled QED regime, with coherent superposition states for novel quantum-enhanced sensing and imaging [5,6]. Probing directly in the local electronic and molecular environments this will inform on the most fundamental level what limits coherence in solid-state quantum systems. I will then close with a perspective towards the ultimate goal of imaging and control, to systematically link coupled internal degrees of freedom to overcome relaxation and dissipation towards quantum materials with desired macroscopic performance.
Fig. 1. Ultrafast optical nano-imaging with simultaneous nanometer spatial and femtosecond temporal resolution resolving from few-fs electronic coherence, to ps coupled electron-lattice, and ns thermal transport dynamics in molecular and quantum materials.
Biography:
Markus Raschke is professor at the Department of Physics and JILA at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His research is on the development and application of nano-scale nonlinear and ultrafast spectroscopy to control the light-matter interaction on the nanoscale. These techniques allow for imaging structure and dynamics of molecular and quantum matter with nanometer spatial resolution. He received his PhD in 2000 from the Max-Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and the Technical University in Munich, Germany. Following a postdoc at the University of California at Berkeley, and research group leader at the Max-Born-Institute in Berlin, he became faculty member at the University of Washington in 2006, before moving to the University of Colorado and JILA in 2010. He is fellow of the Optical Society of America, the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Explorers Club.
