Research Areas

Cold atoms provide clean systems to understand physics far beyond our intuitions. The fast-moving atoms are cooled by irradiating them with laser light of a specific frequency. With a little assistance from the magnetic field, the atoms can be trapped. The temperature of the atoms so trapped can be pretty close to absolute zero. With carefully controlled optical, magnetic and electrical fields as tools, the sensitivity achieved can be very high. It is incredible what these table-top experiments can accomplish.

Here at SQT, we work on Atom Interferometry. The basic principles are the same, except we use atoms instead of photons. Since atoms are massive, their energies are way higher compared to photons and we can attain much higher sensitivities compared to traditional light interferometers. Atom interferometry can be used for many applications ranging from inertial sensing, measurement of basic physical constants, all the way up to testing some of the fundamental theories in physics. The basic thrust of the DIAT program is to develop compact and miniaturized sensors as well as to conduct basic research in the field atomic physics