Research Highlights

Displaying 121 - 140 of 469
Quantum Information Science & Technology
Chaos reigns in a quantum ion magnet
Published: April 29, 2019

JILA researchers have proposed an experiment that would allow them to study rapid scrambling of quantum information, similar to what happens at the event horizon of a black hole. 

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PI(s):
Ana Maria Rey
Atomic & Molecular Physics
Optical tweezers achieve new feats of capturing atoms
Published: April 04, 2019

Trapping single atoms is a bit like herding cats, which makes researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder expert feline wranglers. In a new study, a team led by physicist Cindy Regal showed that it could load groups of individual atoms into large grids with an efficiency unmatched by existing methods.  

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PI(s):
Cindy Regal
Laser Physics
The Snowflake of Insulators
Published: March 01, 2019

By using ultrafast lasers to measure the temperature of electrons, JILA researchers have discovered a never-before-seen state in an otherwise standard semiconductor. This research is the most recent demonstration of a new technique, called ultrafast electron calorimetry, which uses light to manipulate well-known materials in new ways.

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PI(s):
Margaret Murnane | Henry Kapteyn
Biophysics
Pulling apart HIV
Published: February 27, 2019

JILA researchers have demonstrated a much easier, faster and more precise way to understand the structure and function of the HIV RNA molecule, especially the HIV RNA hairpin. Furthermore, the techniques developed for this research promise to allow a wider range of users to study similar biological molecules, as they are built upon commercially available and user-friendly atomic force microscopes, or AFMs.

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PI(s):
Thomas Perkins
Atomic & Molecular Physics
Buckyballs Play by Quantum Rules
Published: February 22, 2019

When the Ye group measured the total quantum state of buckyballs, we learned that this large molecule can play by full quantum rules. Specifically, this measurement resolved the rotational states of the buckyball, making it the largest and most complex molecule to be understood at this level.

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PI(s):
Jun Ye
Atomic & Molecular Physics
The Strontium Optical Tweezer
Published: January 25, 2019

JILA researchers have, for the first time, trapped a single alkaline-earth atom and cooled it to its ground state. To trap this atom, researchers used an optical tweezer, which is a laser focused to a pinpoint that can hold, move and manipulate atoms. The full motional and electronic control wielded by this tool enables microscopically precise studies of the limiting factors in many of today’s forefront physics experiments, especially quantum information science and metrology. 

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PI(s):
Adam Kaufman
Atomic & Molecular Physics
The First Quantum Degenerate Polar Molecules
Published: January 18, 2019

Understanding chemistry requires understanding both molecules and quantum physics. The former defines the start and end of chemical reactions, the latter dictates the dynamics in between. JILA researchers now have a better understanding of both.

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PI(s):
Jun Ye
Atomic & Molecular Physics
Taming Chemistry at the Quantum Level
Published: October 04, 2018

In the vast stretches between solar systems, heat does not flow and sound does not exist. Action seems to stop, but only if you don’t look long enough. Violent and chaotic actions occur in the long stretches of outer space. These chemical reactions between radicals and ions are the same reactions underlying the burn of a flame and floating the ozone above our planet. But they’re easy to miss in outer space because they’re very rare.

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PI(s):
Heather Lewandowski
Quantum Information Science & Technology
Quiet Drumming: Reducing Noise for the Quantum Internet
Published: September 24, 2018

Quantum computers are set to revolutionize society. With their expansive power and speed, quantum computers could reduce today’s impossibly complex problems, like artificial intelligence and weather forecasts, to mere algorithms. But as revolutionary as the quantum computer will be, its promises will be stifled without the right connections. Peter Burns, a JILA graduate student in the Lehnert/Regal lab, likens this stifle to a world without Wi-Fi.  

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PI(s):
Cindy Regal | Graeme Smith | Konrad Lehnert
Laser Physics
Turn it Up to 11 – The XUV Comb
Published: September 04, 2018

With the advent of the laser, the fuzzy bands glowing from atoms transformed into narrow lines of distinct color. These spectral lines became guiding beacons visible from the quantum frontier. More than a half century later, we stand at the next frontier. The elegant physics that will decode today’s mysteries (such as dark matter, dark energy, and the stability of our fundamental constants, to name a few) is still shrouded in shadows. But a new tool promises illumination. 

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PI(s):
Jun Ye
Atomic & Molecular Physics | Precision Measurement | Quantum Information Science & Technology
Twisting Atoms to Push Quantum Limits
Published: August 13, 2018

The chaos within a black hole scrambles information. Gravity tugs on time in tiny, discrete steps. A phantom-like presence pervades our universe, yet evades detection. These intangible phenomena may seem like mere conjectures of science fiction, but in reality, experimental comprehension is not far, in neither time nor space. Astronomical advances in quantum simulators and quantum sensors will likely be made within the decade, and the leading experiments for black holes, gravitons, and dark matter will be not in space, but in basements – sitting on tables, in a black room lit only by lasers.

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PI(s):
Ana Maria Rey | James Thompson
Laser Physics
A Collaborative Mastery of X-rays
Published: July 18, 2018

The hardest problems are never solved by one person. They are solved by teams; or in the case of science, collaborations. It took a collaboration of 17 researchers, including four JILA fellows and another six JILA affiliates, just a little over five years to achieve robust polarization control over isolated attosecond (one billionth of a billionth of a second) pulses of extreme-ultraviolet light. 

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PI(s):
Andreas Becker | Agnieszka Jaron-Becker | Henry Kapteyn | Margaret Murnane
Atomic & Molecular Physics
A Little Less Spontaneous
Published: June 29, 2018

A large fraction of JILA research relies on laser cooling of atoms, ions and molecules for applications as diverse as world-leading atomic clocks, human-controlled chemistry, quantum information, new forms of ultracold matter and the search for new details of the origins of the universe. JILAns use laser cooling every day in their research, and have mastered arcane details of the process.

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PI(s):
James Thompson | Murray Holland
Chemical Physics
An Electron Faucet
Published: June 28, 2018

JILA researchers have created a laser-controlled "electron faucet", which emits a stable stream of low-energy electrons. These faucets have many applications for ultrafast switches and ultrafast electron imaging. The electron faucet starts with gold, spherical nanoshells. “They are glass cores with a thin, gold layer over them,” said Jacob Pettine, the graduate student on the project. These nanoshells are truly on the nanoscale, measuring less than 150 nanometers in diameter, which is “something like a thousandth of the size of a human hair,” said Pettine.

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PI(s):
David Nesbitt
Atomic & Molecular Physics
Shake it Till You Make it
Published: June 27, 2018

“Well, this isn’t going to work.” That was recent JILA graduate Carrie Weidner’s first thought when her advisor, JILA Fellow Dana Anderson, proposed the difficult experiment: to build an interferometer unlike any before – an interferometer of shaking atoms. But the grit paid off, as this compact and robust interferometer outperforms all others in filtering and distinguishing signal direction. While the designs of most atom interferometers are symmetric and elegant, Weidner says the shaken-lattice experiment proposed by Anderson “is more like broken eggs.”

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PI(s):
Dana Anderson
Precision Measurement
Same Clock. New Perspective.
Published: March 26, 2018

We all know what a tenth of a second feels like. It’s a jiffy, a snap of the fingers, or a camera shutter click. But what does 14 billion years–the age of the universe–feel like? JILA’s atomic clock has the precision to measure the age of the universe to within a tenth of a second. That sort of precision is difficult to intuit. Yet, JILA’s atomic clock, which is the most precise clock in the world, continues to improve its precision. The latest jump in precision, of nearly 50 percent, came about from a new perspective.

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PI(s):
Jun Ye
Astrophysics
How a Dust Bunny Becomes a Planet
Published: February 23, 2018

Jupiter is large enough to fit 1,300 Earths inside, and still have room. But like all planets, Jupiter was once nothing more than a cosmic dust bunny. A team of physicists at JILA and the University of Arizona, led by JILA Senior Research Associate Jake Simon, are studying how cosmic pebbles­­—­starting only a millimeter in size—can lead to the formation of planetesimals, the football-field-to-Delaware-sized primordial asteroids whose development defined our solar system’s architecture.

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PI(s):
Phil Armitage
Nanoscience
Brightening the Dark State
Published: February 08, 2018

Researchers from the Raschke group are lighting up dark excitons. Specifically, the Raschke group developed a method to observe dark excitons in a 2D (i.e., a single layer of atoms) semiconductor at room temperature. This observation is an exciting development in the story of dark exciton applications, which includes quantum information processing and fundamental studies of complex semiconductor materials.

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PI(s):
Markus Raschke
Laser Physics
How Magnetism Melts Away
Published: February 03, 2018

Magnets hold cards to your fridge, and store data in your computer. They can power speakers, and produce detailed medical images. And yet, despite millennia of use, and centuries of study, magnetism is still far from fully understood.

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PI(s):
Henry Kapteyn | Margaret Murnane
Atomic & Molecular Physics
The Energetic Adolescence of Carbon Dioxide
Published: January 12, 2018

The reaction, at first glance, seems simple. Combustion engines, such as those in your car, form carbon monoxide (CO). Sunlight converts atmospheric water into a highly reactive hydroxyl radical (OH). And when CO and OH meet, one byproduct is carbon dioxide (CO2) ­– a main contributor to air pollution and climate change.

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PI(s):
Jun Ye