JILA PFC Homepage

Pulse sequences for generating two-axis twisting rotate the spins of KRb molecules, transforming the spin exchange interactions.
Polar Molecules Dance to the Tunes of Microwaves

The interactions between quantum spins underlie some of the universe’s most interesting phenomena, such as superconductors and magnets. However, physicists have difficulty engineering controllable systems in the lab…

Using an extremely high-powered laser, scientists can excite the thorium-229 nucleus, which is the core of a future nuclear clock.
Moving into a Nuclear Timekeeping Domain

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…

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.
A 3D Ion Magnet, the New Experimental Frontier for Quantum Information Processing

Many quantum devices, from quantum sensors to quantum computers, use ions or charged atoms trapped with electric and magnetic fields as a hardware platform to process information. 

However, current…

The lattice beams intersect Bose-Einstein condensed atoms (red) over the angled internal optic. Although only a single probe beam (blue) is shown, probe beams are aligned to each axis of the lattice to enable imaging from any direction.
Meet the JILA Postdoc and Graduate Student Leading the Charge in a Multi-Million-Dollar NASA-Funded Quantum Sensing Project

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…

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 Researchers Create an Even More Precise Optical Atomic Clock

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…

Two orbs are compared to each other, showing different areas noise affects them with colored areas.
Mapping Noise to Improve Quantum Measurements

One of the biggest challenges in quantum technology and quantum sensing is “noise”–seemingly random environmental disturbances that can disrupt the delicate quantum states of qubits, the fundamental units of quantum…

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Major Activities

JILA PFC Partnerships

FIU logo.FIU-JILA Partnership for Research and Education in Physics: https://fiujilaprep.fiu.edu/Student-faculty exchange diagram.
 

An NSF-sponsored partnership between FIU Physics and JILA Physics Frontier Center (PFC) for research excellence and diversity in Atomic, Molecular, and Optical (AMO) Physics. Click diagram for a larger image.

Latest News

JILA graduate student Trevor Kieft (from the Lewandowski group) discusses his latest research in astrophysical chemistry
| Second JILA JAGS Seminar Series Showcases Cutting-Edge Graduate Research

The second installment of the JILA JAGS (JILA Association of Graduate Students) Seminar series recently took place, featuring an exciting lineup of talks by graduate students pushing the boundaries of scientific research. 

The event highlighted the work of Bejan Ghomashi from the Becker Group, Trevor Kieft from the Lewandowski Group, and Emma Nelson from the Kapteyn/Murnane Group, who each presented their cutting-edge research to an engaged audience.

  

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Recent Publications

Frequency ratio of the 229mTh nuclear isomeric transition and the 87Sr atomic clock
1 C.. Zhang, T.. Ooi, J.S. Higgins, J.. Doyle, L.. von der Wense, K.. Beeks, A.. Leitner, G.. Kazakov, P.. Li, P.. Thirolf, T.. Schumm, and J.. Ye, Nature 633, (2024).
Investigators: Jun Ye
Protecting backaction-evading measurements from parametric instability
1 E.P. Ruddy, Y.. Jiang, N.. Frattini, K.. Quinlan, and K.W. Lehnert, Phys. Rev. A 110, (2024).
Investigators:
Relaxation in dipolar spin ladders: From pair production to false-vacuum decay
1 G.. inguez-Castro, T.. Bilitewski, D.. Wellnitz, A.M.. Rey, and L.. Santos, Physical Review A 110, (2024).
Investigators: Ana Maria Rey
Using a research-based assessment instrument to explore undergraduate students’ proficiencies around measurement uncertainty in physics lab contexts
1 G.. Geschwind, M.. Vignal, M.. Caballero, and H.. Lewandowski, Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 20, (2024).
Investigators: Heather Lewandowski
Reductive Quantum Phase Estimation
1 N.. Papadopoulos, J.. Reilly, J.. Wilson, and M.J. Holland, Physical Review Research 6, (2024).
Investigators: Murray Holland
Clock with 8 × 10^{−19} Systematic Uncertainty
1 A.. Aeppli, K.. Kim, W.. Warfield, M.S. Safronova, and J.. Ye, Physical Review Letters 133, (2024).
Investigators: Jun Ye

See all JILA PFC Publications