In our experiments: we realize iconic quantum mechanical systems using ultra-cold rubidium atoms; use ultracold atoms as the qubits in studies of quantum information and computation; and we study new forms of laser cooling.

On all cases, we start with atoms at or above room temperature, and cool nearly to absolute zero, only a few tens or hundreds of nano-Kelvin (room temperature is about 300 K, so our systems is about 10 billion times colder than a pleasant spring day).  Our team has 5 distinct apparatuses (follow the links on the right for a description of each).

These experiments, overseen by PI’s Trey Porto and Ian Spielman, are part of the larger Laser Cooling and Trapping group at NIST.  Both PI’s are part of the JQI (joint quantum institute), a new research partnership between the University of Maryland, NIST and the Laboratory for Physical Sciences.

New stuff! 

Feb. 2011: A spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate, see Rb II page!

Dec.  2009: Synthetic magnetic fields for ultracold neutral atoms, see Rb II page.