Adam Kaufman
We've recently posted our new paper in which we benchmark the performance of optical tweezer arrays of strontium for optical atomic clocks and quantum state control!
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.
We recently posted our first paper on arxiv! We demonstrate tweezer-trapping, single-particle imaging, light-shift free spectroscopy, and three-dimensional ground-state cooling of strontium!
In September, Aaron installed a camera to assemble a timelapse of the lab's development --- it takes a picture every 30 minutes from a corner in the ceiling. Here are some shots from that over the past 4 months, as well as some closeups of our new science system!
Adam Kaufman has been awarded the 2016 DAMOP Thesis Prize for his outstanding thesis research on assembling neutral atoms in optical tweezers, work conducted in the Regal group at JILA. As part of this work, Kaufman and his coworkers developed an experiment that allowed the team to use laser cooling to assemble arrays of ground-state neutral atoms in optical tweezers.
Graduate student Adam Kaufman received one of the poster prizes awarded at this year's International Conference on Atomic Physics in Washington DC. His poster was entitled: "Atomic Hong-Ou-Mandel effect in tunnel-coupled optical tweezers".