William Phillips
National Institute of Standards and Technology and
University of Maryland, Gaithersburg, USA
Nobel Prize in Physics 1997, together with S. Chu and C. Cohen-Tannoudji
Date
21 March 2018
Host
Christof Aegerter
Title
Pushing & Spinning Atoms with Light: From Optical Pumping to Interferometry to Atomtronics
Abstract
For many decades physicists have used light, its polarization and momentum, to manipulate atoms. What began with incoherent light (from atomic vapor lamps) and incoherent atoms (thermal gases) has progressed to coherent (laser) light and coherent atoms (Bose-Einstein condensates). With these tools we create atomtronic circuits – atomic analogs of superconducting electric circuits – and observe quantum jumps between quantized circulation states.
William Phillips (left) with Christof Aegerter