Lundblad lab is an experimental atomic physics research facility at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, USA. We focus on the physics of matter cooled to just barely above absolute zero, including Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC), solid-state simulations or analogs using optical lattices, and neutral-atom quantum control.
News (rss feed)
May 18, 2013
The BEC transition was observed this afternoon; the onset of Bose-Einstein condensation occurred at a critical temperature around 200 nK. Pure condensates were produced consisting of fifty to one hundred thousand atoms in the ground state of a hybrid magnetic/optical trap.
March 25, 2013
Evaporative cooling in the optical dipole trap has commenced!
Feb 28, 2013
Lundblad Lab's optical dipole trap is now online. Transfer from quadrupole magnetic trap to focused 5W 1064nm beam is currently being optimized. Rising '14 seniors Edward Moan, Albert Shi, Joanna Moody, and Yang Guo are beginning to plan senior theses.
Jan 10, 2013
An update long in coming for the curious: currently our main apparatus is evaporatively cooling atoms in a conservative magnetic trap to a few tens of microKelvin above absolute zero; current projects are focused on transferring these magnetically trapped atoms to a focused high-power infrared laser "tweezer," where the BEC transition should be observed. Exciting times!
May 31, 2013
Congratulations to the graduates Marc Tollin '12 and Ethan Emerson '12! Both defended excellent senior theses: Marc on Progress Towards Bose-Einstein Condensation and Ethan on Numerical Analysis of Evaporative Cooling. Best wishes to both of them!
October 17, 2011
Marc Tollin '12 gave a talk (reporting on progress towards BEC at Bates) at Frontiers in Optics 2011/Laser Science XXVII in San Jose. Great job Marc!
July 31, 2011
Summer students have finished up- and milemarkers crossed: we have laser-cooled atoms. Movies: a small cloud (thermal loading), with some magnetic hopping about, and a much larger cloud (Zeeman slower-loaded)
June 7, 2011
Summer students begin! Welcome to Albert Shi, Chris Guo, Kathilee Kenlock, and Janith Rupasinghe.
May 27, 2011
The academic year is done! Nathan will be heading off to Germany to speak at ICOLS, in Hameln (home of the Pied Piper).
April 25, 2011
Nathan will be giving the Bowdoin College Physics Department seminar this week, just down the road from Bates in Brunswick, Maine.
April 6, 2011
Congratulations to lab member Nate Funk '11 for finishing and presenting his senior thesis: Delay-Line Frequency Offset Locking of Two Lasers. Great work!
April 1, 2011
Dr. Ted Corcovilos visits from Penn State to talk about neutral-atom quantum computation.
January 5
The Bates College Department of Physics and Astronomy is accepting applications for a two-year visiting position; details here. For current postdocs (or highly qualified soon-to-finish grad students) this would be a great opportunity to get experience in the world of small colleges like Bates.
December 20
Recent paper (with former colleagues at NIST and theory collaborator at Nevada) accepted to Physical Review Letters!
November 8
Nathan will be giving the Colby College Physics Department seminar this week, just up the road from Bates in Waterville, Maine.
October 31
Science-chamber bake complete; pressure readings in the 10-20 picoTorr range, although at this low pressure diagnosis becomes tricky, and trap lifetime will be the only effective metric.
October 28
Nathan attended the New Laser Scientists Conference, held every two years; this time in Rochester, NY. Other liberal-arts college attendees include James Higbie (Bucknell) and Marty Baylor (Carleton).
August 9
Zeeman slower wound and potted, oven-side system done baking, science-side system nearly assembled
March 29, 2010
Recent paper is highlighted in the meta-journal Physics, which focuses on particularly interesting articles from the Physical Review family of journals.
March 15, 2010
Pictures of the (fairly new) lab, for posterity
February 18, 2010
Paper is accepted! Work on ultracold atoms in optical lattices will be appearing in Physical Review A. (preprint here)
February 9, 2010
Nate Funk '11 joins the lab!
January 21, 2010
Marc Tollin '12 joins the lab!
January 12, 2010
Joanna Moody '13 joins the lab!
January 10, 2010
Lab "renovation" of Carnegie 146 complete: I've stopped moving furniture around and the floors have acquired shininess.