Shimon selected as 2019 Packard Fellow for Science and Engineering

Shimon is honored to have been selected as one of 22 members of the 2019 class of Packard Fellows for Science and Engineering. The fellowship, awarded to early-career scientists from across the U.S., provides $875,000 of funding over five years, which will help support the Kolkowitz Lab’s research into using optical atomic clocks to perform tests of relativity and search for new physics. You can read a bit more about the award and our research plans in this press release.

One isotope, two isotopes, three isotopes, four…

In the video linked to below, we trap and cool all four stable isotopes of strontium (88, 87, 86, and finally 84) in quick succession. (The delay between isotopes is purely for the purposes of the video, and can be shortened considerably.)

Video of loading strontium isotopes

This capability will allow us to perform precision differential measurements of the isotope shifts of the strontium clock transition, and will also enable the use of both the bosonic 88-Sr and fermionic 87-Sr isotopes to characterize clock systematics in our apparatus.

Kolkowitz lab awarded NIST Precision Measurement Grant!

We are honored to have been awarded a Precision Measurement Grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to support our research on performing new tests of relativity in the lab with our strontium optical lattice clock.