News & Research Highlights

Atomic & Molecular Physics
The Sisyphean Task of Cooling Molecules
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Bringing molecules down to ultracold temperatures takes a mythic approach, but the Ye Group finds that their new scheme can hold up under tough conditions.

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Related Publications: Sub-Doppler Cooling and Compressed Trapping of YO Molecules at uK TemperaturesInvestigators: Jun Ye
Atomic & Molecular Physics
Phases on the Move: A Quantum Game of Catch
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The world is out-of-equilibrium, and JILA scientists are trying to learn what rules govern the dynamic systems that make our universe so complex and beautiful, from black holes to our living bodies.

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Related Publications: Exploring dynamical phase transitions with cold atoms in an optical cavityInvestigators: Ana Maria Rey | James Thompson
Laser Physics
Breathing Stars and the Most Beautiful Scalpel
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In a new study from the Kapteyn-Murnane Group, ultrafast laser pulses can precisely cut through and manipulate the interaction between electrons and phonons in tantalum diselenide, changing its properties.

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Related Publications: Coherent modulation of the electron temperature and electron-phonon couplings in a 2D materialInvestigators: Margaret Murnane
Quantum Information Science & Technology
Playing Games with Quantum Entanglement
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Could quantum entanglement improve our cell phone networks? The Graeme Smith Group at JILA found the answer by playing mathematical logic games.

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Related Publications: Playing games with multiple access channelsInvestigators: Graeme Smith
Laser Physics | Quantum Information Science & Technology
Guiding Electrons With Gold Nanostars
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Quantum technologies could process information even faster if they could harness the speed of light. Using gold nanostars, the Nesbitt Lab have found a way to use light to steer electric currents. 

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Related Publications: Plasmonic nanostar photocathodes for optically-controlled directional currentsInvestigators: David Nesbitt
Biophysics | Chemical Physics
Sorting the Glow from the Flow
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How do you find a single cell in a sea of thousands? You make it glow. Adding fluorescence helps track movement and changes in small things like cells, DNA, and bacteria. In a library of millions of cells or bacteria, flow cytometry sorts the glowing material you want to study from the non-glowing material.

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Related Publications: Enrichment of rare events using a multi-parameter high throughput microfluidic droplet sorterInvestigators: Ralph Jimenez
Atomic & Molecular Physics | Laser Physics | Precision Measurement
Tweezing a New Kind of Atomic Clock
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Using optical tweezers, the Kaufman and Ye groups at JILA have achieved record coherence times, an important advance for optical clocks and quantum computing.

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Related Publications: Half-minute-scale atomic coherence and high relative stability in a tweezer clockInvestigators: Adam Kaufman | Jun Ye
Precision Measurement | Quantum Information Science & Technology
Drumming to the Heisenberg Beat
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Quantum drums can get around distracting noise with a new measurement technique—one that perfectly demonstrates the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

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Related Publications: Measurement of Motion beyond the Quantum Limit by Transient AmplificationInvestigators: Konrad Lehnert
Atomic & Molecular Physics | Quantum Information Science & Technology
The Power of the Dark Side
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Atoms could live in their excited states forever by reaching a dark state.

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Investigators: Ana Maria Rey
Atomic & Molecular Physics
How universal is universality?
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New research from the Cornell Group suggests that the van der Waals universality may have limitations.

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Related Publications: Precision Test of the Limits to Universality in Few-Body PhysicsInvestigators: Eric Cornell | Jun Ye
Precision Measurement | Quantum Information Science & Technology
Counting the quietest sounds in the universe
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How do you hear--and study--the quietest sound in the universe? With a special microphone and speaker. 

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Related Publications: Resolving Phonon Fock States in a Multimode Cavity with a Double-Slit QubitInvestigators: Konrad Lehnert
Precision Measurement
JILA team demonstrates model system for distribution of more accurate time signals
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With a super-steady laser, JILA has improved the way we keep time around the world. 

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Investigators: Jun Ye
Quantum Information Science & Technology
Graduate student Chris Kiehl wins poster prize at conference in Germany
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Chris Kiehl, a graduate student in the Regal Group, won a prize for his poster on quantum sensing and metrology at a conference in Germany this summer. 

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Investigators: Cindy Regal
Atomic & Molecular Physics
Bringing quanta out of the cold
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An advance from the Raschke group could free quantum technology from ultra-cold temperatures.

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Related Publications: Tip-enhanced strong coupling spectroscopy, imaging, and control of a single quantum emitterInvestigators: Markus Raschke
Atomic & Molecular Physics | Quantum Information Science & Technology
Dancing through dynamical phase transitions in an out-of-equilibrium state
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Using Feshbach resonance, physicists have found that they can control a dynamical phase transition in an out-of-equilibrium state. 

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Related Publications: Observation of a transition between dynamical phases in a quantum degenerate Fermi gasInvestigators: Ana Maria Rey
Precision Measurement
Keep it steady
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It's hard to read a clock with hands that wobble. The Ye Group has found a way to steady their optical atomic clock using a new cavity.

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Related Publications: Demonstration of 4.8 x 10^(-17) stability at 1s for two independent optical clocksInvestigators: Jun Ye
Biophysics | Precision Measurement
DNA imaging, ready in five minutes
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It's tough to get tightly-wound balls of DNA to lay down flat and straighten out to get their picture taken. A new technique from the Perkins group gets a crisp, clear picture in just five minutes.

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Related Publications: Imaging DNA equilibrated onto mica in liquid using biochemically relevant deposition conditionsInvestigators: Thomas Perkins
Precision Measurement
JILA's legacy on the moon
Published:

It's been 50 years since Apollo 11 landed on the moon. The last operating experiment from that mission was developed at JILA by Dr. James Faller. 

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Investigators: James Faller
Laser Physics
The Fastest Vortex in the West
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Researchers at JILA and the University of Salamanca have found a new property of light, one that creates a whirling vortex that can speed itself up. 

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Related Publications: Generation of extreme-ultraviolet beams with time-varying orbital angular momentumInvestigators: Margaret Murnane
Quantum Information Science & Technology
JILA's Ana Maria Rey wins Blavatnik Award
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Known as the "young Nobels", JILA's own Ana Maria Rey has won a Blavatnik National Award.

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Investigators: Ana Maria Rey