Rate My Professor Mika Sillanpää

Professor Mika Sillanpää is a full Professor in the Department of Applied Physics at Aalto University, leading the Quantum Nanomechanics research group and holding positions in the Centre of Excellence in Quantum Technology (QTF). He earned his Master’s degree in Engineering and Technology from Helsinki University of Technology on November 2, 1999, and his Doctoral degree in Engineering and Technology from the same institution on April 19, 2005. After defending his dissertation, Sillanpää conducted postdoctoral research in the United States, where his work on connecting superconducting qubits via a quantum bus into a superposition state was featured on the cover of Nature. He returned to Finland as an Academy researcher before being appointed Professor of Physics at Aalto University in 2012 and promoted to full professor in July 2023. His career has focused on advancing experimental low-temperature physics at the O.V. Lounasmaa Laboratory and OtaNano infrastructure.

Sillanpää’s research centers on experimental superconducting nanoelectronics at milli-Kelvin temperatures, Josephson junction quantum circuits, microwave optomechanics, low-noise amplification, and nanomechanical resonators cooled to their quantum ground state. Key achievements include pioneering the first coherent coupling of two superconducting qubits through microwave resonance, demonstrating quantum entanglement between macroscopic mechanical drumheads—recognized as Physics World 2021 Breakthrough of the Year—and evading the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in collective mechanical motion, as detailed in a 2021 Science publication. His group explores quantum squeezing, multimode electromechanics, and the interface between quantum mechanics and gravity, exemplified by the ERC Advanced Grant-funded GUANTUM project, which aims to observe gravitational effects on quantum states of milligram-scale oscillators. Sillanpää has received the ERC Starting Grant (2009), ERC Consolidator Grant (2013), ERC Advanced Grant (€2.5 million, 2021), IUPAP C5 Young Scientist Prize in Low Temperature Physics (2011), Väisälä Award (2015), and award from the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters (2022). His publications appear in premier journals including Nature, Science, and Physical Review Letters, influencing quantum technology development, precision sensing, and fundamental physics inquiries. He has presented public lectures, such as his 2016 installation lecture on the quantum-classical borderline.