Research Highlights
Nanoscale materials act differently than their macro counterparts. Using ultra-fast extreme ultraviolet lasers, the KM Goup at JILA has been able to probe silicon carbide as thin as 5 nanometers to understand its strength as it shrinks. This research will help engineers designing ever-shrinking electronics and other technologies.
Within our solar system are icy planetary bodies that do not orbit the Sun. Astrophysicists want to understand why these orbital anomalies exist. Two recent studies by JILA Fellow Ann Marie Madigan's group suggest that these detached objects have steadily nudged themselves out of solar orbit over millions of years. Using supercomputers, the Madigan Group can test their theory of collective gravity.
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. But molecules have proven tricky to cool and trap efficiently. A new study from the Ye Lab has found a way to cool yttrium monoxide robustly and efficiently, which will allow them to study how they interact with each other in the quantum regime.
Scientists understand the rules of equilibrium systems well, but non-equilibrium systems are still a mystery. JILA's Thompson Laboratory and Rey Theory Group collaborated to study how new types of phases of matter emerge in a non-equilibrium system made of atoms and light. This reveals brand new insights into organization principles in out-of-equilibrium matter, and could shed light on how complex systems like black holes behave.
All atoms, molecules and materials are held together by a web of interactions between electrons and ions. In materials, tiny vibrations called phonons cause the positions of the ions to oscillate. How those phonons and electrons are coupled—or interact—determines a material’s properties. The Kapetyn-Murnane Group found that by using ultrafast laser pulses to excite the material, they can precisely study the interaction between electrons and the most important phonons in tantalum diselenide (1T-TaSe2)—and also manipulate it.
Our mobile communication networks are known as multiple access channels or MACS. Through this system, multiple users send data to a single tower, which then relays information to the correct receivers. These 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.
Computer chips can’t get much smaller, but they can get faster. That means moving electrons around more quickly. To speed up computers and possibly enable other technologies, scientists want to use light to drive electric currents. The Nesbitt Lab studied gold nanostars and found a way to optically control currents at the nanoscale.
Fluorescence and dyes are great tools to study cells, proteins, bacteria, or DNA. But scientists need to efficiently sort out the glowing material from the non-glowing stuff in their samples. The Jimenez Lab and the JILA Electronics Shop teamed up to create an improved flow cytometry system which can not only sort fluorescent material faster, it can sort by fluorescence lifetime and brightness faster than a commercially available system.
By using optical tweezers, the Kaufman and Ye groups are exploring a new kind of optical atomic clock—one that can run measurements for more than half a minute, an unprecedented coherence time. Not only does this finding open new possibilities for precision measurement, it’s a starting point to engineer interactions between many coherent and carefully-controlled atoms.
Mechanical oscillators are crucial to developing quantum computers and quantum networks, but they have to fight against noise. Measuring the quantum movement of the oscillator not only reduces its noise, it perfectly displays the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.