News & Research Highlights

In a study published in Physical Review X Quantum, a team led by JILA and NIST Fellow and University of Colorado Boulder physics professor Jun Ye has demonstrated—for the first time—narrow-line laser cooling of a molecule. By utilizing a previously unaddressed transition in the diatomic molecule yttrium monoxide (YO), the researchers have developed a new approach to manipulate internal states and molecular motion with unprecedented precision.

JILA Fellow and University of Colorado Boulder Physics Professor Heather Lewandowski and members of her lab have shattered a 25-year-old theory about how benzene forms in the interstellar medium, revealing that the long-accepted chemical recipe doesn’t work under space-like conditions. Their groundbreaking laser-cooling experiments open a new chapter in understanding the origins of complex carbon molecules in the cosmos.

UNESCO named physicist Jun Ye to its Quantum 100 list—a catalogue of some of the top leaders around the world in the rapidly growing field of quantum science.

For the past several years, an experimental research group led by JILA Fellow James Thompson and a theoretical research group led by JILA Fellow Ana Maria Rey have been working together to study quantum interactions using cavity quantum electrodynamics (cavity QED)—the science of how light contained in reflective cavities interacts with quantum particles, like individual atoms. Recently, they tackled many-body interactions with a new experiment, described in an article published in the journal Science. In the experiment, they successfully created interactions that require the participation of either three or four atoms to achieve the observed results. 

JILA and NIST Fellow Jun Ye has once again been recognized as one of the world’s most influential scientists. For the 12th year in a row, Ye has earned a place on the Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers list, an honor reserved for researchers whose work ranks among the top 1% of citations globally across their fields.

A team led by JILA Fellows and CU Boulder professors Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn has made a significant advance to make soft X-rays more accessible: with their research group, they have developed an ultrastable, scalable and repeatable method for generating soft X-ray beams using a custom-built 3-micron ultrafast laser that is focused into an anti-resonant hollow-core fiber. 

In a new study, researchers led by JILA and NIST Fellow Jun Ye have shown how to make atomic clocks even more precise by leveraging entanglement. This allows the atoms to “tick” more in sync, reducing the randomness that usually limits how precisely we can measure time. 

Their results show that it’s possible to go beyond what’s known as the Standard Quantum Limit (SQL)—a fundamental barrier in quantum measurements—by using a technique called spin squeezing. This work could help improve everything from GPS systems to tests of gravity and the nature of the universe.

JILA and the University of Colorado Boulder are proud to announce that Professor Mathias Weber has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), for fundamental contributions to our understanding of molecular interactions and solvation effects in complex systems, obtained via elegant vibrational/electronic laser photodissociation spectroscopy of molecular and cluster ions in the gas phase.

Jun Ye's research group has developed a groundbreaking laser system with record-breaking stability, crucial for advancing quantum technologies. By combining a highly stable silicon cavity laser with a frequency comb and a secondary cavity tuned for strontium atoms, the researchers created a laser capable of manipulating quantum states with unprecedented precision. Their system significantly reduces frequency noise, a major hurdle in quantum experiments, and demonstrated its effectiveness by achieving a new fidelity record in quantum gate operations on 3000 neutral atom qubits. This innovation paves the way for more accurate atomic clocks and scalable quantum computing.

JILA is proud to announce that Chuankun Zhang, a former graduate student in CU Boulder Physics professor and JILA and NIST Fellow Jun Ye’s research group, has been named a recipient of the prestigious 2025 Boeing Quantum Creators Prize. This national honor recognizes early-career researchers whose work is propelling quantum science and engineering in bold new directions.

In a groundbreaking study researchers at JILA have demonstrated continuous lasing and strong atom-cavity coupling using laser-cooled strontium atoms. This innovative experiment opens new avenues for precision measurement and quantum technologies, promising advancements in quantum sensing and metrology.

JILA and NIST Fellow and University of Colorado Boulder physics professor Jun Ye has been awarded a prestigious 2025 AB Nexus seed grant for his pioneering work in quantum sensing technologies. 

In a new theoretical study, physicists at JILA and the University of Colorado Boulder have proposed a way to make the most precise clocks in the world even more robust—by weaving in the strange, protective properties of topological physics. Their work, recently accepted for publication in PRX Quantum, explores how a class of quantum states known as symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases could be used to improve the performance of optical lattice clocks, a cornerstone of modern precision measurement.

The first Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) was first created by Eric Cornell, Carl Wieman, Mike Anderson, Jason Ensher, and Michael Matthews on June 5, 1995 in JILA at the University of Colorado Boulder. This new state of matter was first predicted 70 years earlier. Satyendra Nath Bose first described the quantum statistics of what we now call bosons, and Albert Einstein extended the theory to show that non-interacting bosons could condense into a single macroscopic quantum state at low temperature. 

In a new study, physicists at JILA and the University of Colorado Boulder have used a cloud of atoms chilled down to incredibly cold temperatures to simultaneously measure acceleration in three dimensions—a feat that many scientists didn’t think was possible.

In a recent study published in Science, by JILA and NIST Fellows and University of Colorado Boulder physics professors Jun Ye and Ana Maria Rey, interactions between atoms are explored in depth, focusing on superexchange processes that occur in a three-dimensional optical lattice.

Professor Cindy Regal, Baur-SPIE Chair at JILA, has been named a 2025 Brown Investigator by the Brown Institute for Basic Sciences at Caltech.

In a thrilling display of scientific communication and creativity, Thi Hoang, a graduate student at JILA, emerged victorious at the inaugural Quantum Science Slam held during the CLEO 2025 conference. This new event, designed to bring cutting-edge science to life for a broader audience, saw participants deliver engaging and entertaining 10-minute presentations on their research.

The strange behaviors of high-temperature superconductors—materials that conduct electricity without resistance above the boiling point of liquid nitrogen—and other systems with unusual magnetic properties have fascinated scientists for decades. While researchers have developed mathematical models for these systems, much of the underlying quantum dynamics and phases remain a mystery because of the immense computational difficulty of solving these models.

In a new study published in Science, researchers from JILA, led by JILA and NIST Fellows and University of Colorado Boulder physics professors Jun Ye and Ana Maria Rey and JILA and CU Boulder physics professor John Bohn, used ultracold molecules to realize these models with an unprecedented level of control. Their work bridges the fields of atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) physics with condensed matter physics, opening new doors for quantum simulations and advances in quantum technologies.

“It is very exciting that experiments with polar molecules are now reaching the point where these models can be implemented in the lab,” Rey says. “While currently, we are exploring dynamics at low filling fractions where theory effort can still have some predicting capabilities, very soon experiments will reach dense regimes intractable by theory, fulfilling the dream of quantum simulation.” 

Jun Ye, a distinguished Fellow at JILA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and a physics professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, has been honored with the 2025 Berthold Leibinger Zukunftspreis.