CundiffSyndicate content

The Pathfinder

The Cundiff group’s new 3D Fourier-transform spectroscopy technique (modeled as

The Cundiff group has taken an important step forward in the study of the quantum world. It has come up with an experimental technique to measure key parameters needed to solve the Schrödinger equation.Read more »

Steve Cundiff Wins Silver Medal for JILA’s New X-Wing

10/22/2012
Steve Cundiff stands in front of the “Cundiff Turn” at the bottom of the open st

Steve Cundiff will receive a Silver Medal from the U. S. Department of Commerce for his leadership of JILA’s X-Wing project at an award ceremony to be held in Washington, D. C. on January 8, 2013. He is also being honored for this achievement during the 40th annual NIST Awards Ceremony at NIST in Gaithersburg, Maryland on December 5, 2012.Read more »

Optical Frequency Combs

Extreme ultraviolet (XUV) frequency comb.
Titanium sapphire crystal in an optical frequency comb.
Optical Frequency Comb.

JILA scientists John Hall , Steve Cundiff , and Jun Ye are world leaders in research on frequency combs. Combs are spectra consisting of hundreds of thousands of evenly spaced sharp spectral lines (colors) produced by extremely stable ultrafast lasers. The line spacing in these spectra is so exact that combs can be used to precisely measure the frequency of hundreds of thousands of discreet colors of light. These new rulers of light are now providing measurement precision that was unheard of until 2003. Read more »

JILA MONSTR and the Chamber of Secrets

A series of three laser pulses from the JILA MONSTR interacts with tiny boxes.

The semiconductor gallium arsenide (GaAs) is used to make tiny structures in electronic devices such as integrated circuits, light-emitting diodes, laser diodes, and solar cells that directly convert light into electrical energy. Because of GaAs’s importance to modern electronics, the Cundiff group seeks to understand the fundamental physics of its light-matter interactions on atomic and electronic levels. Read more »

Steven Cundiff Receives William F. Meggers Award

04/15/2011
Steven T. Cundiff

JILA Fellow Steven Cundiff  has received the Optical Society of America’s 2011 William F. Meggers Award. The award recognizes outstanding work in the study and measurement of the interactions between light and matter (spectroscopy). The award cited Cundiff’s contributions to the field of ultrafast spectroscopy of semiconductors, including multidimensional Fourier transform techniques, and to the development of femtosecond frequency comb technology. Read more »

Gone to the Dark Side, It Has

Mingming Feng adjusts the dark pulse laser. Credit: Greg Kuebler

When former graduate student Mingming Feng started his thesis project, his goal was to build and characterize a mode-locked quantum dot diode laser in Kevin Silverman’s lab at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Feng chose this lab (after consultation with his advisor Steve Cundiff) because Silverman not only does a lot of work on diode laser development, but also collaborates regularly with Cundiff. Read more »

Dense Atomic Vapors

The JILA MONSTR (Multidimensional Optical Nonlinear SpecTrometer). Credit: Greg

Steve Cundiff studies the behavior of dense atomic vapors at temperatures ranging from 300-800 °C. In his group’s initial experiments, researchers directed two or three excitation laser pulses into dense vapors of potassium atoms (39K). The group used a reflection cell to study the signal beam generated by coherent interaction between the excitation pulses in the vapor. Read more »