Research Highlights
Spring 2009
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Meet the JILA MONSTRs
Fellows Steve Cundiff and Ralph Jimenez have created two precision optics instruments with a priceless potential for shedding light on condensed-matter and biological physics... Read More »
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It Takes Two to Tango
Quantum dots are tiny structures made of semiconductor materials. With diameters of 1–5 nm, they are small enough to constrain their constituents in all three dimensions... Read More »
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Spinning Out Starspots
According to widely accepted theory, these young suns build magnetic fields in their convection zones by dynamo processes. Observations of these stars indicate strong magnetic activity... Read More »
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How to Marry a Microscope
The most important step for a microscope wanting to marry another microscope is finding the right partner. A professional matchmaker, such as the Perkins lab, might be just the ticket... Read More »
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A Light Changing Experience
The Weber group wants to understand how the individual building blocks of DNA interact with ultraviolet (UV) light. Such knowledge would be an important step toward gaining a detailed understanding of the molecular processes...
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A Quantum Leap for Precision Lasers
To be the best they can be, optical atomic clocks need better clock lasers — lasers that remain phase-coherent a hundred times longer than the very best conventional lasers... Read More »
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Collision Course
The Greene group just figured out everything you theoretically might want to know about four fermions "crashing" into each other at low energies. Low energies in this context mean ultracold temperatures under conditions where large, floppy Feshbach molecules form... Read More »
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Qubits in Action
Fellows Ana Maria Rey and Jun Ye have come up with a clever idea that should make it much easier to design a quantum computer based on alkaline-earth atoms such as strontium (Sr)... Read More »
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Fermions in Collision?
According to the laws of quantum mechanics, identical fermions at very low temperatures can’t collide. These unfriendly subatomic particles, atoms, or molecules simply will not share the same piece of real estate with an identical twin... Read More »
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Altered States
Knowing the number of times molecules crash into each other and what happens when they do helps theorists predict the best ways to cool molecules to merely cold (1 K–1 mK), pretty cold (1 mK–1 µk) or ultracold (< 1 µK) temperatures... Read More »
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Free Association Tunes
Starting with ultracold atoms in a Bose-Einstein condensate, it’s possible to create coherent superpositions of atoms and molecules. Recently, the Jin group wondered if it would be possible to accomplish the same thing starting with a normal gas cloud of atoms... Read More »
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The Gas Menagerie
The group investigates the photodissociation and recombination of simple gas-phase anions, such as iodine bromide (IBr-), when they are surrounded by different numbers of carbon dioxide (CO2) solvent molecules... Read More »