Research Highlights

  • World map of number of survey responses. Shown on a log scale, each colored country has at least one response; countries in gray have no responses.
    Physics lab courses are vital to science education, providing hands-on experience and technical skills that lectures can鈥檛 offer. Yet, it鈥檚 challenging for those in Physics Education Research (PER) to compare course to course, especially since these courses vary wildly worldwide.

    To better understand these differences, JILA Fellow and University of Colorado Boulder physics professor Heather Lewandowski and a group of international collaborators are working towards creating a global taxonomy, a classification system that could create a more equitable way to compare these courses. Their findings were recently published in Physical Review Physics Education Research.
  •  Adam Kaufman, Nelson Darkwah Oppong, Alec Cao and Theo Lukin Yelin inspect an optical atomic clock at JILA on the 蜜桃传媒破解版下载 campus
    JILA Fellow and NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Physicist and University of Colorado Boulder Physics professor Adam Kaufman and his team have ventured into the minuscule realms of atoms and electrons. Their research involves creating an advanced optical atomic clock using a lattice of strontium atoms, enhanced by quantum entanglement鈥攁 phenomenon that binds the fate of particles together. This ambitious project could revolutionize timekeeping, potentially surpassing the "standard quantum limit" of precision.

    In collaboration with JILA and NIST Fellow Jun Ye, the team highlighted their findings in Nature, demonstrating how their clock, operating under certain conditions, could exceed conventional accuracy benchmarks. Their work advances timekeeping and opens doors to new quantum technologies, such as precise environmental sensors.
  • When the detection efficiency of the quantum nondemolition (QND) measurement is above 0.19, QND outperforms unitary evolution for the preparation of spin squeezing聽in a QED cavity.
    JILA and NIST Fellows and University of Colorado Boulder Physics professors Ana Maria Rey and James K. Thompson and their teams wanted to guide the community on which protocol is best to use under fundamental and realistic experimental conditions. Their results, published in Physical Review Research, revealed that when measurement efficiency is greater than 19%, the QND measurement protocol outperformed unitary dynamical evolution. This finding can have big implications for quantum metrology.
  • Pulse sequences for generating two-axis twisting rotate the spins of KRb molecules, transforming the spin exchange interactions.
    The interactions between quantum spins underlie some of the universe鈥檚 most interesting phenomena, such as superconductors and magnets. However, physicists have difficulty engineering controllable systems in the lab that replicate these interactions.

    Now, in a recently published Nature paper, JILA and NIST Fellow and University of Colorado Boulder Physics Professor Jun Ye and his team, along with collaborators in Mikhail Lukin鈥檚 group at Harvard University, used periodic microwave pulses in a process known as Floquet engineering, to tune interactions between ultracold potassium-rubidium molecules in a system appropriate for studying fundamental magnetic systems. Moreover, the researchers observed two-axis twisting dynamics within their system, which can generate entangled states for enhanced quantum sensing in the future.
  • Using an extremely high-powered laser, scientists can excite the thorium-229 nucleus, which is the core of a future nuclear clock.
    An international team of researchers, led by JILA and NIST Fellow and University of Colorado Boulder Physics Professor Jun Ye and his team, has made significant strides in developing a groundbreaking timekeeping device known as a nuclear clock
  • Bilayer crystals of trapped ions can be realized in devices called Penning traps, and lasers (shown in red and blue) can be used to manipulate the ions and engineer interactions between them. Such crystals may open new avenues for quantum technology applications.
    An international collaboration of physicists from India, Austria, and the USA鈥攊ncluding JILA and NIST Fellow Ana Maria Rey, along with NIST scientists Allison Carter and John Bollinger鈥攑roposed that tweaking the electric fields that trap ions can create stable, multilayered structures, opening up exciting new possibilities for future quantum technologies.
  • JILA postdoctoral researcher Catie LeDesma (left) discusses the new quantum metrology set up with JILA graduate student Kendall Mehling (right)
    In the quiet halls of the Duane Physics building at the University of Colorado Boulder, two JILA researchers, postdoctoral research associate Catie LeDesma and graduate student Kendall Mehling, combine machine learning with atom interferometry to create the next generation of quantum sensors. Because these quantum sensors can be applied to various fields, from satellite navigation to measuring Earth鈥檚 composition, any advancement has major implications for numerous industries.
  • A look inside the optical atomic clock cavity, with the red light being a reflection of the laser light used in the optical lattice
    JILA and NIST Fellow and University of Colorado Boulder Physics professor Jun Ye and his team at JILA, a collaboration between NIST and the University of Colorado Boulder, have developed an atomic clock of unprecedented precision and accuracy. This new clock uses an optical lattice to trap thousands of atoms with visible light waves, allowing for exact measurements. It promises vast improvements in fields such as space navigation, particle searches, and tests of fundamental theories like general relativity.
  • Two orbs are compared, with areas lit up on each of them showing where noise affects them.
    One of the biggest challenges in quantum technology and quantum sensing is 鈥渘oise鈥濃搒eemingly random environmental disturbances that can disrupt the delicate quantum states of qubits, the fundamental units of quantum information. Looking deeper at this issue, JILA Associate Fellow and University of Colorado Boulder Physics assistant professor Shuo Sun recently collaborated with Andr茅s Montoya-Castillo, assistant professor of chemistry (also at 蜜桃传媒破解版下载), and his team to develop a new method for better understanding and controlling this noise, potentially paving the way for significant advancements in quantum computing, sensing, and control. Their new method, which uses a mathematical technique called a Fourier transform, was published recently in the journal npj Quantum Information.
  • Atoms in an optical lattice perform a "quantum walk" where they experience many different quantum phenomena, such as superposition or tunneling.
    JILA Fellow and NIST Physicist and University of Colorado Boulder Physics Professor Adam Kaufman and his team, along with collaborators at NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology), have demonstrated a novel method of boson sampling using ultracold atoms (specifically, bosonic atoms) in a two-dimensional optical lattice of intersecting laser beams.
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