News & Research Highlights

Precision Measurement | Quantum Information Science & Technology
JILA and NIST Fellow Konrad Lehnert receives a prestigious MURI award
Published: May 18, 2023

JILA and NIST Fellow, along with University of Colorado Professor Konrad Lehnert will be leading a project through the Department of Defense (DoD) competitive Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) Program. CU Boulder was matched only by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in receiving three MURI awards. 

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Investigators: Konrad Lehnert
Astrophysics | Physics Education
JILA Fellow Heather Lewandowski's research highlighted in "Popular Science" Magazine
Published: May 17, 2023

JILA Fellow and University of Colorado physics professor Heather Lewandowski helped lead a group of more than 1,000 undergraduate students in a study looking at the temperatures of the Sun's corona. The corona, the outer layer, gets incredibly hot, and the study hoped to figure out why. Their research was featured in Popular Science Magazine, revealing the creativity and ingenuity of undergraduate students in scientific research. 

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Investigators: Heather Lewandowski
Precision Measurement | Quantum Information Science & Technology
JILA Breathalyzer Research Highlighted in Scientific American
Published: May 12, 2023

JILA and NIST Fellows David Nesbitt's and Jun Ye's recent results in their breathalyzer study have been highlighted in a new article in Scientific American. Using frequency combs, a particular type of laser array, scientists could detect specific molecules in the breath, including diseases like COVID-19. This research suggests huge implications for the future of disease diagnosis and prevention. 

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Investigators: Jun Ye | David Nesbitt
Astrophysics
How 1,000 undergraduates helped solve an enduring mystery about the sun
Published: May 09, 2023

For a new study, a team of physicists recruited roughly 1,000 undergraduate students at CU Boulder to help answer one of the most enduring questions about the sun: How does the star’s outermost atmosphere, or “corona,” get so hot?

The research represents a nearly-unprecedented feat of data analysis: From 2020 to 2022, the small army of mostly first- and second-year students examined the physics of more than 600 real solar flares—gigantic eruptions of energy from the sun’s roiling corona. 

The researchers, partially lead by JILA fellow Heather Lewandowski, and including 995 undergraduate and graduate students, published their finding May 9 in The Astrophysical Journal. The results suggest that solar flares may not be responsible for superheating the sun’s corona, as a popular theory in astrophysics suggests. 
 

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Investigators: Heather Lewandowski
Precision Measurement | Quantum Information Science & Technology
JILA and NIST Fellow Ana Maria Rey is Inducted into the National Academy of Sciences
Published: May 09, 2023

Election to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is one of the highest honors that can be bestowed upon a scientist in the United States, and it is a mark of recognition for exceptional scientific achievement. This achievement has now been bestowed on JILA and NIST Fellow, along with the University of Colorado Boulder physics professor Ana Maria Rey, as she was inducted into the NAS in 2023. 

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Investigators: Ana Maria Rey
Atomic & Molecular Physics | Biophysics
Life After JILA: Liz Shanblatt
Published: April 25, 2023

While many JILA alumni go onto have more traditional careers such as in quantum industry, other career paths that might not be as well-known offer some unique benefits. One of these career paths is in medical physics research.  Medical physics is an important and rapidly growing field that is dedicated to the application of physics principles and techniques to medicine and healthcare. Medical physicists are experts in the use of radiation and other technologies to diagnose and treat disease, and they play a vital role in ensuring the safety and effectiveness of medical procedures. They also research and develop the next generation of tools for diagnostic imaging and radiation therapy. For JILA alumni Liz Shanblatt, a Staff Scientist and Collaboration Manager at Siemens Healthineers, medical physics became an interest only as she was nearing graduation and starting to look for jobs.

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Investigators: Other JILA Researcher
Quantum Information Science & Technology
U.S. Department of Defense under secretary visits JILA
Published: April 21, 2023

Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering at the U.S. Department of Defense, visited JILA and the University of Colorado Boulder on Monday to glimpse the future of cutting-edge research.

From the university’s proximity to national laboratories and quantum-intensive companies to the high volume of pioneering alumni, CU Boulder has long been a leader in the quantum space. This legacy has led to a push in innovation and technology, including as it pertains to national security—a goal also shared by Shyu and the Department of Defense.

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Investigators: Jun Ye
Atomic & Molecular Physics | Precision Measurement | Quantum Information Science & Technology
A Tale of Two Dipoles
Published: April 21, 2023

Dipolar gases have become an increasingly important topic in the field of quantum physics in recent years. These gases consist of atoms or molecules that possess a non-zero electric dipole moment, which gives rise to long-range dipole-dipole interactions between particles. These interactions can lead to a variety of interesting and exotic quantum phenomena that are not observed in conventional gases. 

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Investigators: John Bohn
Quantum Information Science & Technology
JILA and NIST Fellows Jun Ye's and David Nesbitt's Frequency Comb Breathalyzer Apparatus Highlighted in SPIE Photonics West Show Daily
Published: April 19, 2023

JILA and NIST Fellows Jun Ye and David Nesbitt, along with their respective teams, have recently been highlighted in the latest issue of the SPIE Photonics West Show Daily, a publication from SPIE. This highlight focuses on the recent advancements in the frequency comb breathalyzer apparatus that the researchers have built and tested, which looks at diagnosing COVID-19 and other diseases.

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Investigators: Jun Ye | David Nesbitt
Quantum Information Science & Technology
Using Frequency Comb Lasers as a Breathalyzer for COVID-19
Published: April 06, 2023

JILA researchers have upgraded a breathalyzer based on Nobel Prize-winning frequency-comb technology and combined it with machine learning to detect SARS-CoV-2 infection in 170 volunteer subjects with excellent accuracy. Their achievement represents the first real-world test of the technology’s capability to diagnose disease in exhaled human breath.

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Related Publications: Breath analysis by ultra-sensitive broadband laser spectroscopy detects SARS-CoV-2 infection
New laser-based breathalyzer sniffs out COVID, other diseases in real-time
Investigators: David Nesbitt | Jun Ye
Laser Physics | Precision Measurement | Quantum Information Science & Technology
NIST and the Department of Commerce Awards JILA and NIST Fellows Jun Ye and Judah Levine with Gold and Silver Medals
Published: March 21, 2023

Every year the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Department of Commerce (DOC) grant honor awards in the form of Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medals. According to the DOC website: “the Gold and Silver Medals are the highest and second highest honor granted by the Secretary for distinguished and exceptional performance.” Two of JILA’s Fellows, Jun Ye, and Judah Levine, have been awarded these medals.

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Investigators: Jun Ye | Judah Levine
Other
JILA Hosts Women in Science Panel to Celebrate International Women in Science Day
Published: February 13, 2023

Some of the most important research and discoveries in science have been made by women. To celebrate these inspiring individuals and to support the next generation of female scientists, the United Nations dedicated February 11 as "International Women and Girls in Science" day. To honor this tradition, JILA hosted a panel discussion/open-forum with both JILA Fellows and JILA staff as speakers.

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Investigators: Margaret Murnane | Ana Maria Rey
Precision Measurement | Quantum Information Science & Technology
Using Ion Crystals to Simulate Superconductors
Published: February 07, 2023

When a superconducting material is cooled down below a critical temperature, something seemingly magical happens: its electrical resistivity drops abruptly to zero! Initially, before 1911, this was thought to be impossible, given that electrons, which are the particles that carry electric current, typically scatter from impurities and imperfections of a crystal lattice used in conducting materials.  Moreover, because electrons are negatively charged particles, they typically repel each other. Yet, behind the “magic” of superconductors is the fact that two electrons, in a periodic crystalline array of atoms (a web of lasers), can attract positive charges in the lattice, whose subsequent deformation mediates an attractive interaction between the electrons. This attraction favors electrons with opposite momenta to bind together, forming ‘Cooper pairs’. These pairs can coalesce into a coherent macroscopic quantum state of matter, in which they remain paired while flowing through the crystal without any resistance. Beyond their immense practical applications, superconductors also offer a promising testbed to study the fundamental physics of matter held far away from equilibrium.

In a conventional superconductor (‘s-wave’ superconductor), the two electrons in a Cooper pair must have opposite spins. But there are unconventional superconductors with p-wave symmetry, in which electrons of the same spin pair up.  This pairing is penalized by an energy barrier and in order to overcome the barrier and pair up, electrons need to carry a non-zero angular momentum, which means that they need to spin around each other. The net angular momentum of the Cooper pairs can give rise to rich quantum behaviors and phases of matter that are intensively sought in real materials and cold atoms, but have, so far, remained elusive.  In particular, the dynamics of p-wave superconductors taken away from equilibrium is predicted to exhibit a variety of temporal behaviors, some of which possess interesting quantum dynamics. Observing these ‘dynamical phases’ in the lab would provide a window into the nature of non-equilibrium phases of matter and some of their properties, and potentially new p-wave superconductors. In cold gases, one of the biggest challenges that has prevented researchers from observing p-wave physics is three-body losses in energy that emerge when weak p-wave interactions are enhanced via external electromagnetic fields. However, to date, liquid 3He remains the only well-established laboratory example of a p-wave superconductor.

To overcome these challenges, JILA and NIST Fellow Ana Maria Rey collaborated with NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Ion Storage Group leader John Bollinger, and researchers at the University of Innsbruck, Rutgers University and the University of Colorado Boulder, to design a trapped-ion simulator for 2D p-wave superconductors. Their work paves a way for clean observations of the predicted non-equilibrium dynamics in future experiments using the trapped-ion simulator, or Penning trap. The researchers published their findings in PRX Quantum.

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Related Publications: Simulating Dynamical Phases of Chiral $p+ip$ Superconductors with a Trapped ion MagnetInvestigators: Ana Maria Rey
Precision Measurement | Quantum Information Science & Technology
Controlling a Quantum Classroom: New Insights into the Spin-Dynamics of Molecules
Published: February 01, 2023

Quantum gases of interacting molecules can exhibit unique dynamics. JILA and NIST Physicist Jun Ye has spent years of research to reveal, probe, and control these dynamics with potassium-rubidium molecules. In a new article published in Nature, Ye and his team of researchers describe having combined two threads of previous research—spin and motional dynamics—to reveal rich many-body and collisional physics that are controllable in the laboratory. 

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Related Publications: Tunable itinerant spin dynamics with polar moleculesInvestigators: Jun Ye
Precision Measurement | Quantum Information Science & Technology
A Quantum Video Reel
Published: January 23, 2023

When it comes to creating ever more intriguing quantum systems, a constant need is finding new ways to observe them in a wide range of physical scenarios.  JILA Fellow Cindy Regal and JILA and NIST Fellow Ana Maria Rey have teamed up with Oriol Romero-Isart, a professor at the University of Innsbruck and IQOQI (Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information) to show that a trapped particle in the form of an atom readily reveals its full quantum state with quite simple ingredients, opening up opportunities for studies of the quantum state of ever larger particles.

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Related Publications: Time-of-flight quantum tomography of an atom in an optical tweezerInvestigators: Cindy Regal | Ana Maria Rey
Atomic & Molecular Physics | Laser Physics
Humans of JILA: Brendan McBennett
Published: January 13, 2023

Surrounded by some of the world’s most advanced lasers, computers, and microscopes sits Brendan McBennett, a graduate student at JILA. McBennett has been working in the laboratories of JILA Fellows Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn, as part of the KM group since 2019, excited to see his research advance significantly over that time. “We use ultraviolet and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lasers to study heat flow in nanostructured materials,” McBennett states. “EUV photons have a higher photon energy that makes them insensitive to electron dynamics in most materials, combined with nanometer wavelengths. This allows them to very precisely probe surface deformations induced by heat - or thermal phonons – to capture new materials behaviors.” In simple terms, McBennett is looking at heat dissipation in nanoelectronics. “Our experiments are providing a better understanding of phonon thermal transport in nanomaterials to inform the development of new predictive theories,” he says. “The field of phonon transport is still in its infancy, compared to our understanding of electrons and spins. There is a lot of technological potential, for energy efficiency, smarter design of nanoelectronics and quantum devices, and phonon-photon and phonon-electron analogs like phononic crystals and thermal diodes.” McBennett’s previous work at NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) studied the power grid under varying renewable energy and energy efficiency scenarios, and his current research zooms in on this previous focus. 

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Investigators: Margaret Murnane | Henry Kapteyn
Precision Measurement | Quantum Information Science & Technology
Defining the Limits of Quantum Sensing
Published: January 12, 2023

There are many methods to determine what the limits are for certain processes. Many of these methods look to reach the upper and lower bounds to identify them for making accurate measurements and calculations. In the growing field of quantum sensing, these limits have yet to be found.  That may change, thanks to research done by JILA Fellow Graeme Smith and his research team, with JILA and NIST Fellow James Thompson In a new study published in Physical Review Applied, the JILA and NIST researchers collaborated with scientists at the quantum company Quantinuum (previously Honeywell Quantum Solutions) to try and identify the upper limits of quantum sensing.

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Related Publications: Opportunities and Limitations in Broadband SensingInvestigators: Graeme Smith
Atomic & Molecular Physics | Quantum Information Science & Technology
Atoms do the Twist
Published: January 11, 2023

At ultra-cold temperatures, quantum mechanics dictate how particles bump into each other. The collisions depend both on the quantum statistics of the colliding partners (their location within the medium) and on their collisional energy and angular momentum.  The angular momentum of the particles creates an energy barrier, a field of energy that prevents two molecules from interacting, and which can also affect particle dynamics in the quantum realm. The two main types of interactions at the quantum level are s-waves and p-waves. S-wave types of collisions happen naturally between fermions when they exist together in two different internal states and happen with zero angular momenta, which creates a low energy barrier. That means that atoms can collide “head-on.” S-wave collisions have been very well studied and characterized.  However, quantum statistics prevents identical fermions (those having the same internal state) to collide via s-wave interactions, instead forcing them to interact via the so-called “p-wave” channel. 


However, quantum statistics prevents identical fermions (having the same internal state) to collide via s-wave interactions, instead forcing them to interact via the so-called “p-wave” channel.  In contrast with s-wave interactions, p-wave interactions are penalized by the aforementioned energy barrier.In order to collide, particles need to carry a non-zero angular momentum in order to overcome that barrier—they need to spin around each other, like a pair of dancers. The net angular momentum of the partners can give rise to rich quantum behaviors and phases of matter that have been intensively sought in real materials and cold atoms, but which have not yet been found. Besides the energy barrier, the dynamics of three-body recombination, which involves interactions when three atoms are present rather than two, can make it complicated to study p-wave interactions in an isolated space. To overcome these problems, and to measure coherent p-wave interactions between two particles for the first time, JILA and NIST Fellow Ana Maria Rey and her group, together with JILA theorist Jose D’Incao, collaborated with the University of Toronto experimentalist team led by Joseph Thywissen. They devised a method to isolate pairs of atoms in an optical lattice, a web of laser light that helps isolate and control particle interactions, then gave the particles the necessary angular momentum, or twist, for the atoms to collide via p-wave using specific laser beam frequencies. This resulted in the first observation of p-wave interactions in an experiment. The researchers have published their findings in the journal Nature.

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Related Publications: Unitary p-wave interactions between fermions in an optical latticeInvestigators: Ana Maria Rey
Quantum Information Science & Technology
JILA, NIST Fellow, and University of Colorado Boulder Professor Jun Ye is appointed to the National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee
Published: December 22, 2022

JILA, NIST Fellow, and University of Colorado Boulder Professor Jun Ye has been appointed to the National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee. In a recent announcement, President Biden advanced the National Quantum Initiative by appointing fifteen experts in quantum information science to the National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee (NQIAC), with Ye being one of the members. 

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Investigators: Jun Ye
Precision Measurement | Quantum Information Science & Technology
JILA, NIST Fellow, and University of Colorado Boulder Professor Jun Ye is awarded a 2022 Department of Commerce Gold Medal
Published: December 22, 2022

JILA and NIST Fellow as well as University of Colorado Boulder Professor Dr. Jun Ye has been awarded a 2022 Gold Medal from the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC). The gold medal is the highest honorary award given by the DOC and "is granted by the Secretary for distinguished performance characterized by extraordinary, notable, or prestigious contributions that impact the mission of the Department and/or one or more operating units," according to the DOC. 

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Investigators: Jun Ye