Â鶹ÒùÔº

Cooling and trapping atoms has helped scientists advance their understanding of atomic and quantum physics over several decades. Now it’s time to move on to more complex systems, like molecules. A new study from the Ye Lab has found a way to cool yttrium monoxide robustly and efficiently.

Thanks to a $1.6-million grant, CU Boulder Physics Professor Dan Dessau will spend five years striving to make breakthroughs in quantum systems technology. Dessau is one of 20 U.S. scientists to win support from the Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems (EPiQS) Initiative at the Moore Foundation.

Using infrared lasers and a new microscope, the Raschke Group has obtained a high-resolution view of molecular coupling in porphyrin nanocrystals. Achieving this high-resolution imaging of molecular function opens doors to study all kinds of phenomenon in the quantum world.

JILA Fellows Ana Maria Rey and James Thompson have created a controllable, non-equilibrium macroscopic system in the lab in order to study how it behaves when you tune individual parameters. What they found could pave the way for a new foundation in our basic understanding of physics.

For many quantum materials, the electronic properties depend on how phonons and electrons are coupled. Using ultrafast laser pulses, the Kapteyn-Murnane Group can study electron-phonon couplings in tantalum diselenide and explain many of the material's essential properties.

Quantum technologies could process information even faster if they could harness the speed of light. Using gold nanostars, the Nesbitt Lab have found a way to use light to steer electric currents, which can speed up computers and possibly enable other technologies.

Our mobile communication networks—known as multiple access channels or MACs—have a fundamental limit on how much data they can handle. Through mathematical logic games, the Graeme Smith Group found that quantum entanglement could boost that fundamental limit.

JILA Fellows Kapteyn and Murnane, whose ultrafast lasers allow scientists to view phenomena that were previously too tiny and quick-moving to observe, were recently honored with a Benjamin Franklin Medal.

Andrew Lucas (Assistant Professor, Physics), one of the winners of the early-career award, studies how quickly information spreads in quantum systems, developing new frameworks to help scientists control and send quantum information as efficiently as possible.

A new proposal from the Rey Theory Group offers hope that strontium atoms could live longer in an excited state by facilitating the creation of a dark state, which is stable and does not decay. Maintaining a long-lived excited state would open new opportunities for optical atomic clocks.