Prof. Dr. Elsa Abreu
Prof. Dr. Elsa Abreu
SNSF Professor at the Department of Physics
Additional information
Research area
Elsa Abreu's research focuses on investigating the dynamical response of complex materials to a strong excitation caused by an ultrafast laser pulse. Tuning the wavelength between the THz, IR and optical ranges enables different subsystems of the material to be excited, and a careful choice of probe in turn gives access to the dynamics of the charge, lattice, spin and orbital degrees of freedom. Elsa Abreu has been using time-resolved measurements as a tool to modulate and control the properties of a variety of materials such as multiferroics, Mott insulators and spin-ladder compounds.
Elsa Abreu has been an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Quantum Electronics in the Physics Department since 2023. In 2022 she was awarded a Starting Grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation to investigate the dynamics of quantum materials driven out of equilibrium by an ultrashort light pulse.
Elsa obtained her BSc in Physics from the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2005, and her MSc at Instituto Superior Técnico and Uppsala University, Sweden, in 2007. In 2014 she graduated with her PhD in Physics from Boston University, MA, USA. Between 2015 and 2018 Elsa Abreu worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Steven Johnson's group at the Institute for Quantum Electronics. From 2018 to 2023 she worked with a small team on "Exploring superconductivity pathways in low-dimensional spin-ladder and spin-chain compounds", a project funded by an Ambizione Grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation.
Membership
| Since | Membership |
|---|---|
| 2019 | Founding member and treasurer of the Swiss Society of Photon Science |
| 2017 | Member of the Swiss Physical Society |
Honours
| Year | Distinction |
|---|---|
| 2015 | Inter-MUST Women Postdoc Award |
| 2015 | ETH Postdoctoral Fellow |
| 2011 | Goldhaber Prize, Boston University |
| 2009 | Doctoral Fellow, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal |
| 2008 | Dean's Fellow, Boston University |
| 2006 | Erasmus Fellow |
Additional information
A full publication list is available via Google Scholar, Publons or Orcid.