Adam Kaufman

Although “Aruku” means “walking” in Japanese, Aruku keeps running to pursue further understanding and harnessing the quantum mechanical world. In this way, he found his passion for Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics (AMO) in the Takahashi laboratory at Kyoto University, Japan, where he accumulated AMO and laser experiences. While he visited the University of Washington as an exchange student, he developed a ULE cavity system for the Ytterbium clock transition laser in the Gupta group. After coming back to Kyoto in 2020, he did theoretical research relating to cold atoms.

Matt joined the lab as a National Research Council (NRC) Postdoctoral Fellow after completing a PhD in James Thompson’s lab at JILA.  Matt’s thesis, titled “New tools for precision measurement and quantum science with narrow linewidth optical transitions” focused on coupling a large ensemble of strontium atoms to an optical cavity via narrow and ultra-narrow linewidth optical transitions.  A key outcome of this work was the first demonstration and characterization of superradiance from the 1 mHz linewidth strontium clock transition, which holds promise as a future high-precision optical fre

Aaron was once a film major at Wesleyan university, but, after realizing there were far too many photons involved in film, turned his focus to photonics and quantum optics. He worked briefly in the molecular photophysics lab at Wesleyan, studying the dynamics of laser induced breakdown in water, before transferring to Caltech. There, he completed a senior thesis under Professor Oskar Painter titled "Hybrid Electromechanical Qubits as Quantum Memory".