2025

• [April] Dasom, Xinwei, Jacques’ paper published in Science Advances! (Rice News)
• [April] Rice scientists uncover quantum surprise: Matter mediates ultrastrong coupling between light particles
  
• [April] Dasom Kim defends his PhD thesis successfully!

2024

• [November] Shuying Chen wins first place in the OISS Photo Competition!
• [October] Alan Covarrubias wins first place in the poster competition of the eQMA Workshop 2024 held at Rice University!
• [August] Jacques Doumani defends his PhD thesis successfully!
• [March] Kono tapped to lead Rice’s Smalley-Curl Institute

2023

• [December] Felix, Andrey, and Fuyang’s paper published in Science Advances! (Rice News)

• [December] Four new graduate students join the Kono group — Alan Covarrubias-Morales (from Mexico), Carlos Criollo (from Colombia), Jiacheng Li (from China), and Albert Wu (from Taiwan)!
• [November] Jacques Doumani’s paper published in Nature Communications! (Rice News, LinkedIn)
• [October] The First Workshop on Quantum Vacuum in Matter organized at Rice! (Rice News)
• [September] Fuyang Tay and Andrey Baydin give keynote talks at the 2023 IRMMW-THz conference
• [March] Rice hosts the 2023 TOMODACHI-STEM and MACHI programs (Rice News)
• [January] Open postdoctoral positions in cavity QED in the ultrastrong coupling regime.
  Applicants with previous experience in designing/characterizing optical cavities and ultrafast optical techniques are preferred.
  Interested candidates should apply via this website.

2022

• [November] Kono awarded a $2-million grant from Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (Rice News, ECE News)
• [October]  Wehmeyer, Kono, and Pasquali receive $1.5m PIRE grant from NSF
• [September]  Kono publishes a quantum mechanics textbook for engineers (Barnes & Noble, Amazon)
• [June]  Natsumi receives prestigious Schmidt Science Fellowship
• [May]  Ali Mojibpour and Natsumi Komatsu defend their PhD theses successfully!
• [February]  Strong magnets put new twist on phonons

2021

• [August 2021]  Woven nanotube fibers turn heat into power

• [May 2021]  Rice physicists’ RAMBO reveals magnetic phenomenon useful for quantum simulation and sensing

• [May 2021]  ‘Magic angle’ device can rotate terahertz polarization by 90˚ or more

• [May 2021]  Odd angles make for strong spin-spin coupling

• [May 2021]  Thin is now in to turn terahertz polarization

2020

• [December]  Sheets of carbon nanotubes come in a rainbow of colors
• [December]  Kono receives a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative grant
• [August]  Rice’s RAMBO-II: A sequel better than the original
• [June]  Nicolas’ contributed abstract upgraded to a KEYNOTE talk at IRMMW-THz!!
• [March]  Groovy key to nanotubes in 2D
• [March]  Banning carbon nanotubes would be scientifically unjustified and damaging to innovation
• [March]  Takuma’s contributed abstract upgraded to an invited talk at CLEO
• [January]  Study finds billions of quantum entangled electrons in ‘strange metal’

2019

• [July]  Rice device channels heat into light (published in ACS Photonics; see also phys.org, Revolution-Green, and Futurity)
• [May]  Xinwei Li’s contributed abstract upgraded to an invited talk at CLEO!
• [April]  Xinwei Li successfully defends his Ph.D.
• [April]  Takuma Makihara receives Goldwater Scholarship!

2018

• [August]  Rice U. Lab Finds Evidence of Matter-Matter Coupling (published in Science; see also EurekAlert!, Science Daily, phys.org)
• [June]  Rice signs MOU with Federal University of Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées (see also President Leebron’s tweet)
• [May]  Xinwei Li receives Incubic Milton Chang Travel Grant at 2018 CLEO Conference (picture in the photo page)
• [May]  Scientists Go Deep to Quantify Perovskite Properties (published in Nature Communications; see also Rice MSNE)
• [April] ‘Exceptional’ Research Points Way Toward Quantum Discoveries (published in Nature Photonics; see also EurekAlert!)
• [April] Quantum Shift Shows Itself in Coupled Light and Matter (published in Nature Photonics; see also EurekAlert!)
• [April] Trailer prepared for Dr. Kono’s summer online course, ELEC 261: Electronic Materials and Quantum Devices
• [March] Plasmons Triggered in Nanotube Quantum Wells (published in Nature Communications; see also phys.org)
• [January]  Kankan Cong successfully defends her Ph.D.

2017

• [December ] “Evidence for a topological excitonic insulator in InAs/GaSb bilayers” by Lingjie Du, Xinwei Li, et al. published in Nature Communications (also featured in Rice News and EurekAlert! ).
• [August]  Ahmed Zubair successfully defends his Ph.D.
• [May] The DOE Office of Science published a highlight about our research: “Well-Aligned and Densely Packed”
• [April] Weilu Gao was awarded the Chinese National Scholarship for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad
• [January Prof. Kono featured in Rice Engineering News “Kono: ‘Teaching and Research are parts of the same activity'”

2016

• [December] “Single-shot terahertz time-domain spectroscopy in pulsed high magnetic fields” by Tim Noe, Fumiya Katsutani, et al. accepted for publication in Optics Express
• [December] “Giant Terahertz-Wave Absorption by Monolayer Graphene in a Total Internal Reflection Geometry” by Yoichi Harada, Minjie Wang, Tim Noe, et al. accepted for publication in ACS Photonics
• [August] “Collective nonperturbative coupling of 2D electrons with high-Q terahertz cavity photons” by Qi Zhang, Minhan Lou, Xinwei Li, et al. published in Nature Physics
• [August] “Light and matter merge in quantum coupling” by Rice News and featured on Department of Energy Office of Science website
• [August]  Minjie Wang successfully defends her Ph.D.
• [June] “Students meet Ambassador Caroline Kennedy” by Rice News
• [May]  Dr. Xiaowei He wins this year’s Best Ph.D. Thesis Award
• [April]  Weilu Gao successfully defends his Ph.D.
• [April] “Nanotubes line up to form films” by Rice News, Futurity, phys.org, Nanotechnology Now, IEEE Spectrum, Nano Daily
• [April Xiaowei He and Weilu Gao’s paper published in Nature Nanotechnology
• [April] Manjakavahoaka’s paper has been selected in Spotlight on Optics “Probing low-density carriers in a single atomic layer using terahertz parallel-plate waveguides” by OSA
• [February] Grant Program for Global Research Internship (Nakatani RIES Fellowship)

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