# Adrian Bachtold
**Adrian Bachtold** (born 1972[1](https://www.idref.fr/228891213)) is an experimental condensed matter physicist, ICFO Professor and became head of the Quantum NanoElectronics and NanoMechanics Group at ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona, where he has held the professorship since 2012.[2](https://www.icfo.eu/ca/download-file/files/curriculums/20260312065850.pdf) He pioneered quantum transport experiments in carbon nanotubes and went on to build nanotube mechanical resonators that set records for quality factor (measure of how long a resonator vibrates), mass resolution, and force sensitivity.[2](https://www.icfo.eu/ca/download-file/files/curriculums/20260312065850.pdf) He holds dual Swiss and French nationality.[3](http://archives.esf.org/coordinating-research/euryi/awards/2005/adrian-bachtold.html)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Field | Experimental condensed matter physics: nanotube quantum transport and quantum nanomechanics[2](https://www.icfo.eu/ca/download-file/files/curriculums/20260312065850.pdf) |
| Position | ICFO Professor and group head, Quantum NanoElectronics and NanoMechanics, since 2012[2](https://www.icfo.eu/ca/download-file/files/curriculums/20260312065850.pdf) |
| Training | Ingénieur Physicien, EPFL, 1996; PhD in Physics, University of Basel, 1999, summa cum laude[4](https://www.fundacionareces.es/recursos/doc/portal/2018/04/06/adrian-bachtold.pdf) |
| Record measurements | Quality factors of several million (2014); mass resolution on the order of yoctograms; force sensitivity on the order of zeptonewtons per square-root hertz (2018) |[6](https://www.nature.com/articles/nnano.2014.234) • [7](https://export.arxiv.org/pdf/1204.2758) • [8](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b02437)
| Honors | APS Fellow (2017); ERC Starting (2011), Advanced (2016, 2025), and Proof of Concept (2019) grants; CNRS Bronze Medal (2004); EURYI Award (2005)[2](https://www.icfo.eu/ca/download-file/files/curriculums/20260312065850.pdf) |
| Current funding | More than €11M in external grants as of February 2026, including ERC QTUBE (2026–2030) and EIC Pathfinder MECH-QUBIT (2026–2029) |[2](https://www.icfo.eu/ca/download-file/files/curriculums/20260312065850.pdf) • [9](https://www.icfo.eu/research-group/24/nem/home/)
## Career
Bachtold graduated as Ingénieur Physicien at the [École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne](https://www.edgepedia.org/ecole-polytechnique-federale-de-lausanne) in 1996 and obtained his PhD in physics from the University of Basel in 1999, summa cum laude.[4](https://www.fundacionareces.es/recursos/doc/portal/2018/04/06/adrian-bachtold.pdf) • [2](https://www.icfo.eu/ca/download-file/files/curriculums/20260312065850.pdf) He then held two postdoctoral fellowships, at the [University of California](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-california), Berkeley from 1999 to 2000 and at TU Delft from 2000 to 2001.[2](https://www.icfo.eu/ca/download-file/files/curriculums/20260312065850.pdf) • [10](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6145-2479)
From 2001 to 2004 he was chargé de recherche, a permanent CNRS position, at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.[2](https://www.icfo.eu/ca/download-file/files/curriculums/20260312065850.pdf) (The [European Science Foundation](https://www.edgepedia.org/european-science-foundation)'s EURYI record gives the Paris period as 2001–2005; his ICFO curriculum vitae gives 2001–2004.[3](http://archives.esf.org/coordinating-research/euryi/awards/2005/adrian-bachtold.html)) In 2005 he moved to Barcelona as a CSIC researcher at CIN2, becoming CSIC professor there from 2010 to 2012.[2](https://www.icfo.eu/ca/download-file/files/curriculums/20260312065850.pdf) ORCID records the Barcelona period as ICN2 (ICN-CSIC) from 2005 to 2012.[10](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6145-2479) In 2012 he joined ICFO as professor and head of the Quantum NanoElectronics and NanoMechanics Group, a role he holds as of 2026.[2](https://www.icfo.eu/ca/download-file/files/curriculums/20260312065850.pdf)
## Representative work
His first-author paper Aharonov–Bohm oscillations in carbon nanotubes was published in *Nature* on 1 February 1999 during his Basel period.[5](https://doi.org/10.1038/17755) In 2001 he was first author of the paper that *Science* selected as Scientific Breakthrough of the Year.[2](https://www.icfo.eu/ca/download-file/files/curriculums/20260312065850.pdf)
## Nanotube nanomechanics and sensing
At ICFO and earlier in Barcelona, Bachtold's group turned suspended carbon nanotubes into electromechanical resonators, which the group's 2018 *Nano Letters* study describes as the smallest operational mechanical resonators based on low-dimensional materials.[8](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b02437) That route worked: in 2014 the group measured quality factors Q as high as 5 × 106 in ultra-clean nanotube resonators at a cryostat temperature of 30 mK, values comparable to the highest Q reported in resonators of much larger size, even though shrinking a resonator usually lowers its quality factor.[6](https://www.nature.com/articles/nnano.2014.234) The measured Q fluctuated in time because the resonant frequency itself fluctuated.[6](https://www.nature.com/articles/nnano.2014.234)
The same platform serves as a mass sensor: a vibrating nanotube's frequency shifts when matter adsorbs onto its surface. A 2008 *Nano Letters* experiment using a 1 nm diameter nanotube reached a mass resolution of 25 zeptograms at room temperature, tested with evaporated chromium atoms.[11](https://doi.org/10.1021/nl801982v) After current-annealing cleaning of the nanotube, the group reached 1.7 (±0.5) yoctograms, about the mass of one proton, with a resonator about 150 nm long vibrating at nearly 2 GHz; the same sensor detected adsorption of naphthalene molecules and measured the binding energy of a xenon atom on the nanotube surface as 131 meV.[7](https://export.arxiv.org/pdf/1204.2758) In force sensing, the group reported 12 zN/√Hz at 1.2 K in 2013, noting that nanotube force sensing opens opportunities for detecting and manipulating individual nuclear spins and for magnetometry.[12](https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/1305.6887) In a 2018 study, an RLC-resonator read-out with a low-temperature amplifier reached about 0.4 pm/√Hz displacement sensitivity and about 3 zN/√Hz force sensitivity at 300 mK, described in the paper as the best force sensitivity achieved thus far with a mechanical resonator, with nanotube–gate spacing reduced to about 150 nm.[8](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b02437)
## How nanotube resonators compare with other platforms
Graphene and carbon nanotube resonators are the intrinsically smallest mechanical systems used for sensing. A doctoral thesis from the group found that graphene resonator frequency stability is limited by imprecision in detecting the motion, and that nanotube read-out improves substantially when the signal is down-mixed electrically through an RLC resonator with a HEMT amplifier at around 4 K, raising the read-out frequency from 1–10 kHz to over 1 MHz.[13](https://www.tdx.cat/handle/10803/663907) The 2014 record Q values showed that nanotubes can match the quality factors of much larger resonators despite their extreme size.[6](https://www.nature.com/articles/nnano.2014.234)
## Honors, funding and roles
Bachtold is a Fellow of the [American Physical Society](https://www.edgepedia.org/american-physical-society) (2017) and holds ERC Starting (2011), Advanced (2016 and 2025), and Proof of Concept (2019) grants, the 2004 CNRS Bronze Medal, and the 2005 EURYI Award.[2](https://www.icfo.eu/ca/download-file/files/curriculums/20260312065850.pdf) • [1](https://www.idref.fr/228891213) According to his European Science Foundation EURYI award page, his EURYI project proposed a suspended-nanotube electromechanical oscillator for ultra-low force detection, possibly at sub-attoNewton resolution.[3](http://archives.esf.org/coordinating-research/euryi/awards/2005/adrian-bachtold.html) His group held over €11M in external grants as of February 2026, according to the ICFO group page; current grants are the ERC Advanced Grant QTUBE (2026–2030), the EIC Pathfinder MECH-QUBIT (2026–2029), QubitEM from MCINN (2026–2028), a BBVA Fundamentos grant (2024–2027), and support from Fundació CELLEX Barcelona.[2](https://www.icfo.eu/ca/download-file/files/curriculums/20260312065850.pdf) • [9](https://www.icfo.eu/research-group/24/nem/home/)
## Recent developments
The group now works in the ultrastrong dispersive coupling regime of electromechanics, where the electromechanical interaction strength exceeds the bare mechanical frequency.[2](https://www.icfo.eu/ca/download-file/files/curriculums/20260312065850.pdf) A 2023 *Nature Physics* paper discovered a mechanism that boosts the Duffing nonlinearity by coupling nanotube vibrations to single-electron tunnelling in that regime; at the lowest temperature the average vibration amplitude is 13 times the zero-point motion, with about 42% of the thermal energy stored in the anharmonic part, bringing a nonlinear nanomechanical resonator close to the quantum ground state.[14](https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/2378593) A 2026 preprint reports current-based RF charge sensing in a carbon nanotube.[15](https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.28313) The QTUBE and MECH-QUBIT projects target quantum control of massive mechanical motion and long-coherence [mechanical qubits](https://www.edgepedia.org/mechanical-qubit); the group's broader program also includes strongly correlated and topological states such as twisted bilayer graphene.[9](https://www.icfo.eu/research-group/24/nem/home/)
## References
1. [Bachtold, Adrian (1972-.... ; physicien) – IdRef/SUDOC](https://www.idref.fr/228891213)
2. [Adrian Bachtold – CV (ICFO)](https://www.icfo.eu/ca/download-file/files/curriculums/20260312065850.pdf)
3. [Adrian Bachtold – European Science Foundation, EURYI award page](http://archives.esf.org/coordinating-research/euryi/awards/2005/adrian-bachtold.html)
4. [Adrian Bachtold – workshop biography (Fundación Areces)](https://www.fundacionareces.es/recursos/doc/portal/2018/04/06/adrian-bachtold.pdf)
5. [Aharonov–Bohm oscillations in carbon nanotubes (Nature, 1999)](https://doi.org/10.1038/17755)
6. [Nanotube mechanical resonators with quality factors of up to 5 million (Nature Nanotechnology, 2014)](https://www.nature.com/articles/nnano.2014.234)
7. [A Mechanical Mass Sensor with Yoctogram Resolution (arXiv preprint)](https://export.arxiv.org/pdf/1204.2758)
8. [Ultrasensitive Displacement Noise Measurement of Carbon Nanotube Mechanical Resonators (Nano Letters, 2018)](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b02437)
9. [Quantum NanoElectronics and NanoMechanics group page (ICFO)](https://www.icfo.eu/research-group/24/nem/home/)
10. [Adrian Bachtold (0000-0002-6145-2479) – ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6145-2479)
11. [Ultrasensitive Mass Sensing with a Nanotube Electromechanical Resonator (Nano Letters, 2008)](https://doi.org/10.1021/nl801982v)
12. [Ultrasensitive force detection with a nanotube mechanical resonator (arXiv, 2013)](https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/1305.6887)
13. [Mass sensing with graphene and carbon nanotube mechanical resonators (doctoral thesis)](https://www.tdx.cat/handle/10803/663907)
14. [Nonlinear nanomechanical resonators approaching the quantum ground state (Nature Physics, 2023)](https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/2378593)
15. [Current-based RF charge sensing in a carbon nanotube (arXiv, 2026)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.28313)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Physical world and mathematics › Physical and mathematical scientists › Physicists and astronomers › Surface and interface physicists*
*Initially written Sep 21, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 25, 2026; Oct 15, 2026 · Last review: Sep 25, 2026*
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