Atomic & Molecular Physics

The NIST NRC Postdoctoral Program supports a nationwide competitive postdoctoral program administered in cooperation with the National Academies/National Research Council (NRC). The postdoctoral program brings research scientists and engineers of unusual promise and ability to perform advanced research related to the NIST mission, introduces the latest university research results and techniques to NIST scientific programs, strengthens mutual communication with university researchers, shares NIST unique research facilities with the U.S. scientific and engineering communities, and provides a valuable mechanism for the transfer of research results from NIST to the scientific and engineering communities.

Our paper on high power light sources at magic wavelengths for neutral atom optical atomic clocks is published in RSI! https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0057619

https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/nuclear-clock-atomic-most-precise-time-physics?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=

Critics agree: this book extends from the front cover all the way to the back!

“This is a book that, unfortunately, I cannot un-read.”
     - Physics Yesterday

They always say, the fun in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is the way it wiggles.  In a new study, Eli Halperin has followed the wiggles of a BEC composed of dysprosium atoms that are little magnets.

We are pleased to report that our article, "Prospects for Bose-Einstein Condensation in Ultracold Molecules", Laser Physics 13, 1091 (2003), remains in a 30,996-way tie for the least-cited physics paper of all time!

Balls of clay may stick to each other when they collide. This is because the original energy they had before the collision gets so mixed up in heating the clay that the balls have none left to separate. Molecules, particularly small ones, don't generally act this way, since there are not many places for the energy to disappear into.