Rate My Professor Nathalie de Leon

Nathalie de Leon is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Princeton University, part of the Engineering faculty. She is also an Associated Professor of Physics and Associated Faculty at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. In addition, she serves as Co-Director of the Princeton Quantum Initiative and Director of Graduate Studies for the program's new Ph.D. initiative at the intersection of quantum physics and information theory. De Leon received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2011 and her B.S. from Stanford University in 2004. She leads the de Leon Group, which focuses on building quantum technologies and using quantum metrology to advance fundamental science. The lab works on color centers in diamond and other wide bandgap materials as solid-state atom-like systems for quantum sensing and communication, particularly nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond for studying materials and condensed matter physics. The group also develops superconducting qubits and circuits to understand and mitigate noise and loss for next-generation quantum processors.

De Leon's interdisciplinary research integrates optics and nanophotonics, surface science and materials spectroscopy, atomic physics, condensed matter physics, nanofabrication, optoelectronics, magnetic resonance, and cryogenics. She leads the Materials Thrust in the C²QA, a Department of Energy Quantum Information Science research center. Her achievements have been honored with the 2023 APS Rolf Landauer and Charles H. Bennett Award in Quantum Computing, 2018 DOE Early Career Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award, NSF CAREER Award, 2017 Sloan Research Fellowship in Physics, and Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award. Key publications include "Materials challenges and opportunities for quantum computing hardware" in Science (2021), "New material platform for superconducting transmon qubits with coherence times exceeding 0.3 milliseconds" in Nature Communications (2021), "Nanophotonic quantum phase switch with a single atom" in Nature (2014), "Nuclear magnetic resonance detection and spectroscopy of single proteins using quantum logic" in Science (2016), and "Visible-frequency hyperbolic metasurface" in Nature (2015). Her work has significantly influenced quantum hardware development and materials challenges in quantum computing.