September 10, 2024
Alisa Javadi, assistant professor with a joint appointment between the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Physics, received an Early Career Award from the Department of Energy. Alisa’s project explores novel host crystals based on oxides that can serve as hosts for quantum bits, with the goal of overcoming limitations related to electron spin coherence. The project combines theoretical modeling and advanced material synthesis techniques to identify and produce high-quality quantum emitters. By leveraging materials with minimum magnetic interference, the research aims to unlock new possibilities for quantum technologies, such as more precise sensors and scalable quantum information systems.
June 19, 2024
The work of OU Postdoctoral Fellow, Marko Mićić, was recently published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and featured in Nature as a research highlight. This exciting research gives us a glimpse into how galaxy interactions may trigger black hole activity.
September 09, 2024
Research led by Nikole Nielsen, an assistant professor of astrophysics and cosmology at the University of Oklahoma, has been published in the journal Nature Astronomy that examines, pixel-by-pixel, the highest resolution photograph of the halo of gasses surrounding a star-bursting galaxy. Using the 10-meter telescope at the Keck Observatory on the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii – the most sensitive instrument of its kind – they detected a cloud of glowing gas that extended 100,000 light years away from the galaxy.
May 30, 2024
We had the honor to host Ceren Dag (ITAMP/Harvard), Peter Engels (Washington State University), Lea Santos (University of Connecticut), Dan Stamper-Kurn (UC Berkeley), and Emilia Witkowska (IFPAN, Poland) for a 2-day mini-workshop at OU. The workshop featured 1.5 days of talks, including talks by OU postdocs Anal Bhowmik, Hoang Van Do, Yicheng Zhang, and Shan Zhong, as well as a poster session that showcased AMO research led by OU undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdocs and tours of AMO and condensed matter labs in Lin Hall, which meets NIST-A specifications. The mini-workshop was made possible through the Dodge Family Distinguished Visitor and Workshop Fund.
August 23, 2024
A recent paper by Badal Bhalla and Tao Xu, both members of the Sinha group, written in collaboration with Benjamin Lehmann from MIT, has explored the possibility that primordial black holes could be locked into binaries with stars in our Galaxy. Titled “Dancing with invisible partners: three-body exchanges with primordial black holes”, the work has been featured in New Scientist as well as several popular media outlets.
April 08, 2024
Lunar Sooners set up 4 telescopes with solar filters on April 8 2024 to observe the solar eclipse. They collaborated with OU Marketing to host a fantastic event, delivering about 3000 eclipse glasses. Adam Moss MC'ed the event, and we were happy to have President Harroz join and look through our telescopes. Many Lunar Sooners members made this event possible, especially Adam Moss, Heechan Yuk, Chanuntorn Pumpo, Gil Garcia, Stephanie Hall, Theeva Jayanthi, and others.
Bihui Zhu, an assistant professor of atomic, molecular, and optical physics in the Center for Quantum Research and Technology, is one of 48 researchers named to the 2024 Young Investigator Program by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research for her project titled “Harnessing quantum many-body phenomena with long-range interacting AMO platforms.”
To learn more, read the full news article.
Dr. Thirumalai “Venky” Venkatesan, the director of the Center for Quantum Research and Technology at the University of Oklahoma, was elected as Foreign Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy.
View Dr. Venkatesan's letter from INSA (pdf).
Mukremin Kilic, Ph.D., an associate professor of astrophysics and cosmology in the Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, is one of 14 scientists selected by NASA to join the Ultraviolet Transient Astronomy Satellite Participating Scientists Program.
To read more, view the full news article.
In other recent news, Professors Tischler, Santos, and Furis have secured large Federal grants to support new recent themes in the CQRT. Tischler and Santos from the Physics and Astronomy Department at OU in collaboration with Amethyst Research Incorporated (ARI) were granted a Phase II Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) from the Office of the Secretary of Defense for a total of $1,700,000.00. OU and ARI are working together to develop tunable epsilon-near-zero tunneling diodes in the infrared region to be used as detectors and light sources.
To read more about the CQRT grants, view the newsletter feature.
On March 8th and 9th, the Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics & Astronomy participated in an APS Improving the Climate for Women Site Visit. This program, run by the American Physical Society, sends 4-person groups of external visitors to physics departments around the country with the goal of improving the department climate for women and other marginalized groups.
To read more about the APS visit, view the newsletter feature.
The inaugural 2-day workshop brought leading researchers from academia, national laboratories, and industry to OU’s Norman campus in May 2022.
Read more about the CQRT workshop
View the original event flyer below:
Optical Tweezer Mini Workshop.pdf