News

The latest result from our Rb-Sr lab was published in PRL: Measurement of the g factor of ground-state ⁸⁷Sr at the parts-per-million level using co-trapped ultracold atoms, Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 193001 (2025), arXiv:2504.11242 (2025), IoP news item.

The European Doctoral Network QuRIOUS has 15 open PhD positions for work on optical clocks, of which two in our lab.

Press release: QuRIOUS: a new doctoral programme on optical quantum clocks.

The European Doctoral Network Gen-Q - Generation Quantum has 51 open PhD positions, of which six in our research cluster, see here.

Camila Beli Silva obtained a PhD for her thesis Cavity-atom interactions in a thermal strontium beam - Development of a simple apparatus for quantum metrology.

Gentle joined the continuous atom interferometry team of Philippe Bouyer.

András joined the QDNL team to build our zero-deadtime strontium optical clock.

Ananya joined our group as postdoc to work on continuously operating strontium optical clocks.

We are organizing a Lorentz Center Workshop on Ultracold Quantum Sensing, April 17 - 21, in Leiden, Netherlands. Applications are open till February 5 under this link.

Mehrdad has programmed a nice laser locking system using a Red Pitaya. He explains it on his YouTube channel and has placed all sources on github.

The AQuRA consortium will build an optical atomic clock with high technology readiness level (TRL 7). We are coordinating this project and will contribute robust optical circuits to the clock. More details are in an IoP news item and on the AQuRA website.

The EuRyQa consortium will build a European infrastructure for Rydberg Quantum Computing. The QDNL KAT-1 Rydberg Quantum Computing team (Servaas Kokkelmans' group at TU/e and our group) are participating with our Sr tweezer quantum simulators/computers. More details are on the EuRyQa website.

Digvijay joined the RbSr team to work on quantum chemistry and quantum simulation with RbSr molecules.

Simon and Noé joined us for 1-year projects. Simon is working on RbSr and Noé on our atom laser experiment.

Philippe has started as coordinator of the Quantum Sensing catalysis program of QDNL. In addition he joined our QG&QI group and the AMO group at TU/e.

Yu Chih joined the SrMic team to work on quantum simulation and computing with single, tweezer trapped Sr atoms, coupled by Rydberg excitations.

Floris Keizer and Patrick Dooyeweerd are teachers who did an internship with us. They constructed a miniature magneto-optical trap apparatus guided by Benjamin Pasquiou and talk about their work in this video.

Sumit has joined the QDNL team as a postdoc. We will build an optical lattice clock and make it useful for research and industry. Benedikt has joined the superradiant clock team and is a member of our MoSaiQC Innovative Training Network.

Our invited review article on "Laser cooling for quantum gases" is now published in Nature Physics. Here an openly accessible version. We also wrote a short IoP news item about it.

Junyu has joined the SrPAL team as a postdoc. We have the goal of outcoupling a continuous atom laser from our continuous-wave BEC.

Florian was invited to give a talk about our continuous-wave BECs and our superradiant clock project in the Quantum Science Seminar (YouTube, pdf, pptx). During this talk Rodrigo gave a short tour of the atom laser lab (YouTube) and Francesca showed the iqClock lab (YouTube). On other occasions Alex Urech showed the Sr tweezer machine (YouTube) and Vincent Barbé the RbSr lab (YouTube).

The iqClock team welcomes three new team members. Stefan did win a postdoc grant to join us, Mikkel is on secondment from the Niels Bohr Institute's quantum metrology group for six months, and Camila started her PhD, funded by MoSaiQC.

Ivo has joined the SrMic team to develop a quantum simulator/computer based on Rydberg coupled Sr atoms in optical tweezers and Mateusz has joined the RbSr team as a guest researcher.

We are collaborating with artists Dmitry Gelfand and Evelina Domnitch on a Studiotopia project, see IoP news item.

The European Innovative Training Network MoSaiQC has 15 open PhD positions for work on optical clocks.

Press release: EC funds Innovative Training Network for quantum clocks.

Prem will do his PhD on the RbSr project and Francesca and Sheng will do their PhDs on the iqClock project.

We coordinate the NWO programme Atomic Quantum Simulators 2.0 - Taming Long-range Interactions, which will create and study long-range interacting many-body systems based on RbSr ground-state molecules or ytterbium ions immersed in ultracold lithium gas. Partners in this programme are Rene Gerritsma, Gerrit Groenenboom, Servaas Kokkelmans and Cristiane Morais Smith.

We coordinate the Quantum Flagship consortium iqClock, which will build an integrated optical lattice clock and develop superradiant clocks. On this occasion Folia produced a video explaining optical clocks, Ad.nl presented a video lab tour, and De Volkskrant printed an interview.

Alessio obtained the distinction cum laude for his PhD thesis Taming ultracold RbSr and Sr₂.

Nature Physics 14, 881 (2018), open-access, view-only version: SharedIt, arXiv:1710.03093.

Nature Physics news & views: Quo vadis now, cold molecules?

Press release: Quantum LEGO: building ultracold molecules.

Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 223202 (2017), arXiv:1707.05370.

Press release: Towards a continuous atom laser.

UvA News: Lecturer in the spotlight: Florian Schreck

Our article Efficient production of long-lived ultracold Sr₂ molecules was highlighted by Phys. Rev. A as "Editor's Suggestion".

As part of QuSoft, we are members of the Quantum Software Consortium, which received an NWO Zwaartekracht grant.

Alex obtained his PhD for the thesis Ultracold strontium and rubidium: mixtures, quantum gases and molecules.

Florian Schreck received an NWO Vici grant to construct a perpetual atom laser and to use that laser for the creation of an active clock laser.

Georgios Siviloglou received a Marie Curie grant of the European Commission (SYMULGAS, No. 661171) to implement artificial gauge fields with strontium.

Benjamin Pasquiou received an NWO Veni grant to demonstrate atom interferometry using a perpetual atom laser.

UvA rector magnificus prof. Dymph van den Boom visited us and inaugurated our new labs.

Our work on laser cooling to quantum degeneracy has been selected as one of the Top Ten Breakthroughs in Physics 2013 by Physics World, the journal of the British Institute of Physics. See also IQOQI press release and UvA press release.

Florian Schreck received an ERC consolidator grant.

Simon Stellmer has received an IQOQI dissertation prize for his work in our group.

Our group has arrived at the University of Amsterdam. And even our super fragile glass vacuum cell survived the transport despite -6°C outside temperature in Innsbruck and a huge storm in Amsterdam!