Lab Members

Dr. Jun Ye

Our research group explores the frontier of light-matter interactions. Precisely controlled lasers enable our communications with microscopically engineered quantum systems of atoms and molecules. By preparing matter in specific quantum states, and using probe light with the longest coherence time and precisely controlled waveform, we strive to make fundamental scientific discoveries and develop new enabling technologies.

The strongly integrated development of scientific vision and experimental tools has enabled us to advance important topics in precision measurement, quantum many-body physics, quantum metrology, ultrafast science, and quantum science in general. For example, we employ quantum gas of strontium atoms confined in optical lattices to achieve best performing atomic clocks and investigate novel quantum dynamics, combining quantum metrology and quantum simulation. We prepare molecules in quantum degenerate gases to engineer tunable Hamiltonians for correlated quantum phenomena. These quantum-state prepared molecules are also explored for test of fundamental physics and study of quantum chemistry. Stable lasers and optical frequency combs are extending precision spectroscopy and extreme nonlinear optics from mid infrared to extreme ultraviolet, providing novel probes of large quantum systems, trace detection for health and environment, and new spectroscopy opportunities in a nuclear transition.

Affiliations

Fellow of JILA
Fellow of NIST
Professor Adjoint, Department of Physics

Short Biography

I am a Fellow of JILA and a Fellow of NIST.  I am also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of APS, and a Fellow of OSA. My research focuses on the frontiers of light-matter interactions that include precision measurement, quantum science, ultracold matter, and frequency metrology. I have co-authored 380 scientific papers and delivered 600 invited talks. Awards and honors include Micius Quantum Prize, N.F. Ramsey Prize, I.I. Rabi Award, US Presidential Rank Award (Distinguished, four Gold Medals from the U.S. Commerce Department, Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences,Frew Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, I.I. Rabi Prize, European Frequency and Time Forum Award, Carl Zeiss Award, William F. Meggers Award, Adolph Lomb Medal, Arthur S. Flemming Award, Presidential Early Career Award, Friedrich Wilhem Bessel Award, Samuel Wesley Stratton Award, and Jacob Rabinow Award.

Dr. Parul Aggarwal

I am a postdoctoral research associate working on laser cooling and trapping of YO molecules. I did my Ph.D. work in the group of Prof. Steven Hoekstra at the University of Groningen, where I worked on the production and Stark deceleration of molecular beams.

Dr. Junyu Lin

I am a postdoc working on the KRb polar molecules experiment. In this project, we use ultracold polar molecules to study many-body physics with dipole-dipole interactions. I completed my Ph.D. in the Wang group at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where we studied on the control of the collisions between NaRb polar molecules.

Dr. Jacob Higgins

I am an NRC postdoc using XUV frequency combs to search for the anomalously low nuclear transition of thorium-229 with the goal of building a nuclear clock. I completed my Ph.D. in the Engel Group at the University of Chicago studying the relationship between vibronic coupling and evolutionary photoprotection in photosynthetic proteins using two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy.

Henrik Hirzler

I am a postdoc on the KRb experiment. Here, we use ultracold polar molecules to explore many-body physics. I received my PhD from the Gerritsma group at the University of Amsterdam, where we studied long-range ion-atom interactions.

Dr. Kyungtae Kim

I am a postdoc working on the strontium lattice clock experiments. I finished my Ph.D. in the Jae-yoon Choi group at KAIST(Korea), where I studied ultracold lithium atoms focusing on quantum gas experiments.

Dr. Jun-Ru Li

I am a postdoctoral research associate in the KRb polar molecules project.  We are using ultracold polar molecules to study many-body physics with long-range interactions and ultracold chemistry.  I completed my Ph.D. work in the Ketterle group at MIT, where we used Bose-Einstein condensates in optical superlattice to explore interesting many-body phases.

Dr. Lee Liu

I am a postdoctoral research associate working on infrared spectroscopy of buffer gas cooled fullerenes. I earned my PhD in the Ni group at Harvard assembling ultracold molecules with optical tweezers.

Nelson Darkwah Oppong

Nelson joined the lab in September 2022 as a Humboldt postdoctoral fellow. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Bloch group at LMU in Munich, where he worked on ultracold ytterbium quantum gases in optical lattices. For his thesis work, he explored how the clock state of ytterbium can be employed for the simulation of interesting multiorbital models from solid-state physics. Now, at JILA, Nelson is excited to explore how programmable interactions in Strontium tweezer arrays can be utilized for quantum-enhanced metrology in collaboration with the Ye group, and, how such systems can be used for probing Hubbard physics at the single-particle level.

Dr. Dina Rosenberg

I am a VATAT postdoctoral research fellow working on high-precision mid-IR spectroscopy of buffer gas cooled fullerenes.  I earned my PhD in the Fleischer lab at Tel-Aviv University on ultrafast rotational echo spectroscopy and coherent molecular dynamics of gas phase ensembles.

Dr. Christian Sanner

I am a Humboldt postdoc working on experiments with the strontium lattice clock.  Before coming to JILA, I did research on ytterbium ion clocks at PTB and studied ultracold Fermi gases at MIT.

Dr. Lars von der Wense

I am a Humboldt postdoctoral research fellow working on the XUV frequency comb project towards direct laser spectroscopy of the 229mTh nuclear transition and the development of a nuclear optical clock. I received my PhD from LMU Munich in Germany in 2017 in the field of nuclear physics for the direct detection of the 229mTh nuclear transition.

Alexander Aeppli

Justin Burau

Annette Carroll

I work on the KRb experiment, exploring many-body physics with ultracold polar molecules. I received my undergraduate degree in physics from Princeton University and studied condensed matter problems in the Yazdani and the Houck labs.

Ross Hutson

Dhruv Kedar

Qizhong Liang

I am a graduate student working on mid-infrared molecular spectroscopy measurements at high spectral resolution and ultra-high detection sensitivity. I received my bachelor's degree from Nankai University.

Kyle Matsuda

I work on the KRb experiment, where we are studying many-body physics and ultracold chemistry with a quantum gas of polar molecules. I received my Bachelor's degree from Harvard, where I worked on laser cooling of molecules in Professor John Doyle's lab.

Kameron Mehling

I am a graduate student working on the direct laser cooling of Yttrium Oxide (YO). This project has pioneered many feats for diatomic molecules such as magneto-optical trapping, sub-Doppler cooling, and conservative trapping. Ongoing work seeks to further achieve higher densities and lower temperatures towards quantum degeneracy, expanding the frontiers of quantum control. I was previously an undergraduate at the University of Chicago where I studied physics and math.

Maya Miklos

I work on one of the strontium clock experiments-- on our particular project, we're building a new machine with an optical lattice clock inside a high-finesse cavity. We're aiming to use the long-range interactions unlocked by our cavity as a new platform to study both precision metrology (for example, by achieving a spin-squeezed clock), and many-body physics. I previously studied physics and math at Harvard, working in Misha Lukin's group on a coupled NV/nanomechanical oscillator system.

Calder Miller

I am a graduate student on the KRb experiment, studying many-body physics using ultracold molecules. I previously studied physics and applied math at Harvard, where I worked on laser cooling polyatomic molecules and ultrasensitive atomic force microscopy.

William Milner

I am a member of the strontium experiment researching quantum many-body physics and precision measurements utilizing ultra low phase noise lasers.  I was previously an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison researching neutral atom quantum computing.

John M. Robinson

I am a member of the strontium research group where we work on advancing the strontium atomic clock for frequency metrology and many-body physics.  I received my physics undergraduate education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Tanya Roussy

I work on the electron EDM project with Dr. Ye and Dr. Cornell.  I earned my Masters and undergraduate degrees at UBC in Engineering Physics.

Yee Ming Tso

Lingfeng Yan

Chuankun Zhang

I work on the XUV frequency comb project, where we are building XUV frequency combs for direct laser spectroscopy of the 229mTh nuclei. I received my bachelor’s degree at Tsinghua University.

Jack Doyle

I am currently working on the Direct excitation of the thorium 229 nucleus with a XUV frequency comb.