Past Events
Engineering Native Biological Complexity from the Inside–out and Outside–in
Engineering heterogenous multicellular tissue with native complexity remains one of the holy grails of regenerative medicine and basic biological research. As success in this regard would yield powerful bioengineered constructs useful in functional transplantation, high-throughput drug screening, and fundamental biology investigation, research efforts in our lab have centered around developing and implementing tools to spatiotemporally customize living cell function both from the “outside–in” and from the “inside–out”.
Aromatic species in the molecular Universe
Over the last 20 years, we have discovered that we live in a molecular Universe: A Universe with a rich and varied organic inventory; A Universe where molecules are abundant and widespread; A Universe where molecules play a central role in key processes that dominate the structure and evolution of galaxies. A Universe where molecules provide convenient thermometers and barometers to probe local physical conditions.
Blazing the Trails to Habitable Planets: Over the Experimental > Mountains and Across the Observational Deserts
Abstract: The discovery of thousands of planets orbiting stars beyond the solar system has fundamentally shifted our view of Earth’s place in the Universe, has captivated the public imagination, and has transformed research priorities in astrophysics. We are now actively searching for atmospheres on temperate, terrestrial planets, and are developing the technical tools to find and characterize “Earth-2.0”.
Pseudogap at ultralow temperatures in a Fermi-Hubbard quantum simulator
The behavior of the doped Hubbard model at low temperatures is a central problem in modern condensed matter physics, with relevance to correlated materials such as cuprate superconductors. Despite extensive computational studies, many open questions remain on its low-temperature phase diagram, motivating its study through quantum simulation with ultracold fermionic atoms in optical lattices. Here, leveraging a recent several-fold reduction in experimental temperatures, we report the first direct experimental observation of the pseudogap metal in the Hubbard model.
Zaap! Electricity and Magnetism!
Join us on Saturday, November 15, 2025, for an electrifying experience as CU Physics Professor Daniel Bolton uncovers the wonders of electric charges and magnets up close! Ever wondered how electrical attraction and repulsion function or what transpires inside an electric circuit? Curious about the inner workings of a power plant in generating electricity?
Reaction Mechanisms of Combustion Intermediates
Abstract: Modeling gas-phase chemical kinetics relevant to combustion and atmospheric chemistry requires a complete description of elementary reactions involving ephemeral species such as hydroperoxyalkyl radicals, Q̇OOH, which undergo competing sets of unimolecular reactions and bimolecular reactions with O2. The balance of flux from the competition affects rates of chain-branching and inherently depends on temperature, pressure, and oxygen concentration.
Science Communication for Researchers
In this workshop, you will learn how to tailor your research for different audiences. It will provide you with skills to present your work for job interviews in academia and industry. You will also learn how to apply these communication skills to the public and have the opportunity to practice with feedback from trained experts in science communication. All JILAns are welcome to attend.
The workshop is two hours total and will be offered twice:
Option 1: Wednesday November 12, 10am-12pm in JILA X325
Option 2: Thursday November 13, 2-4pm in JILA X317
What can the atmospheric escape from exoplanets tell us about our own solar system?
The study of atmospheric escape from exoplanets has undergone significant advances in the recent decade.
Ultrafast nano-imaging resolving carrier and lattice dynamics on the nanoscale
Abstract: Ultrafast infrared spectroscopy in its extension to nano-imaging provides access to vibrational and low energy carrier dynamics in molecular, semiconductor, quantum, or polaritonic materials. In addition, to simultaneously probe both ground and excited state dynamics we have developed ultrafast heterodyne pump-probe nano-imaging with far-from-equilibrium excitation.
Heat Transport and Nanophotonics at Extreme Small (Atomic) Scales
Abstract: Understanding thermal transport and light-matter interactions at the extreme scales is both fundamentally important and practically relevant. Studying these regimes often demand new instrumentation and high-resolution sensing techniques. In this talk, I will present my lab’s efforts to explore the complex landscape of heat transport and nanophotonics at the atomic and single-molecule scale. Specifically, we have developed microfabricated scanning thermal microscopes with picowatt- and sub-picowatt sensitivity and atomic spatial resolution.
Biochemistry Seminar Series
The Department of Biochemistry invites professors and scientists fr
Light-emitting molecular semiconductors for LEDs, solar cells and spin-optical interfaces
RASEI is hosting Prof. Richard Friend, from the University of Cambridge, UK, will be presenting on Wednesday November 12, 2025 as part of the Nozik Lecture Series from 3:00 – 4:00 PM, with a poster reception with refreshments following the talk. The talk will be on the fourth floor of the CASE building on main campus.
Science Communication for Researchers
In this workshop, you will learn how to tailor your research for different audiences. It will provide you with skills to present your work for job interviews in academia and industry. You will also learn how to apply these communication skills to the public and have the opportunity to practice with feedback from trained experts in science communication. All JILAns are welcome to attend.
The workshop is two hours total and will be offered twice:
Option 1: Wednesday November 12, 10am-12pm in JILA X325
Option 2: Thursday November 13, 2-4pm in JILA X317
Quantum Computing Enhanced Sensing
Quantum computing and sensing represent two distinct frontiers of quantum information science. Here, we harness quantum computing to solve a fundamental and practically important sensing problem: the detection of weak oscillating fields with unknown strength and frequency. We present a quantum computing enhanced sensing protocol, that we dub quantum search sensing, outperforming all existing approaches. Furthermore, we prove our approach is optimal by establishing the Grover-Heisenberg limit -- a fundamental lower bound on the minimum sensing time.
No Fireworks: Black Hole Radiation Builds Gradually
Abstract: This talk will explore how quantum radiation - known as Hawking radiation – emerges when a black hole forms in the gravitational collapse of a star. While it has long been known that black holes emit energy, its precise origin has been debated. Over the decades, some researchers proposed that this energy is released directly from the collapsing star, producing a sudden burst that may potentially disrupt the collapse.
A Hidden Quantum Interference in a Weyl Semimetal System
Quantum interferences, where two electronic pathways “compete” in a manner akin to the interference of separate propagating waves, are often exploited in atomic systems to realize a variety of exotic phenomena, such as electromagnetically induced transparency, slow light and lasing without inversion. In crystalline materials, quantum interferences can sometimes be difficult to discern with conventional probes, even if their consequences may be just as profound.
Rocket launches and satellite re-entry: Estimating how the coming age of LEO megaconstellations may impact the atmosphere
The number of rockets and satellites launched into space has rapidly increased since the late 2010’s as a response to the expanding interest in both the commercial and government opportunties available in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The year 2021 saw the number of rockets launched into space break the record set in 1967 during the height of the space race, while a GAO report on satellite megaconstellations released in 2023 estimated that the number of satellites present in LEO will balloon from present day numbers of roughly 6,000 to over 60,000 individual units by 2040.
The nonlinear Electrodynamics of Weyl Semimetals
Abstract: At the heart of the Weyl semimetal are massless, chiral quasiparticles that derive from electronic band-crossings split by either spatial inversion or time-reversal symmetry breaking. The resulting nodal points in the bulk band structure serve as sources and sinks of “topological charge” that are responsible for the phenomenology usually associated with these materials, including open Fermi arc surface states and the chiral anomaly.


