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09:00 - 10:00 (Chicago Standard Time, CST)
16:00 - 17:00 (Central European Time, CET)
20:30 - 21:30 (India Standard Time, IST)
23:00 - 00:00 (China Standard Time, CST)
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Benjamin Hopton
Ph.D. Researcher in Ultra-cold Atomic Physics
University of Nottingham, England
Ben is a PhD researcher in experimental ultracold atomic physics at the University of Nottingham. His research focuses on developing techniques to improve the performance and practicality of cold-atom systems, with applications in quantum technologies and tests of fundamental physics. His work includes multi-frequency magneto-optical trapping, which enables more atoms to be captured at a higher rate, alongside research into structured surfaces for improved passive vacuum pumping. His broader interests include compact cold-atom platforms and developments towards atom interferometry .
Towards scalable cold-atom quantum technologies: from passive-pumping surface structures to enhanced atom trapping
Cold-atom systems underpin emerging quantum technologies, including precision sensing, and enable tests of fundamental physics. Improving their performance while reducing the size and complexity of experimental infrastructure remains a significant challenge. This talk presents two complementary approaches to addressing this challenge. First, a multi-frequency magneto-optical trap enhances atom capture by simultaneously addressing a broader range of atomic velocities, increasing the loading rate by more than fourfold and enabling the trapping of over 10¹⁰ rubidium-87 atoms. Second, 3D-printed structured surfaces improve passive vacuum pumping, achieving up to a fourfold increase in pumping performance per unit structured area. Together, these advances offer practical routes toward more sensitive, compact, and scalable cold-atom systems for next-generation quantum technologies.
Xiaoxing Xia
Staff scientist
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, United States
Dr. Xiaoxing Xia is a staff scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, USA. He leads projects in developing next generation multi-photon 3D printing technologies to achieve higher throughput, finer resolution, and multi-materials printing capability. His team utilizes a suite of advanced manufacturing technologies for applications in responsive and architected materials, microelectronics packaging, microfluidics, quantum computing, and inertial confinement fusion. He is named among MIT Technology Review's "Innovators under 35" in 2025, and his parallel 3D nanolithography work received the R&D 100 Award in 2025. Xia received his PhD in Materials Science from California Institute of Technology and BA in Physics and in Economics from University of Chicago.
Massively Parallel 3D Nanolithography Using a Metalens Array
High-volume, rapid fabrication of 3D nano-architected materials and devices is key to deploying next-generation nanotechnologies to solve real-world challenges. Due to the field-of-view limitations of conventional optics, existing maskless 3D nanofabrication techniques face fundamental challenges in throughput, proximity error, and stitching defects. We present a scalable 3D nanofabrication platform that utilizes a metalens-generated focal spots array to massively parallelize two-photon lithography (TPL). Our metalens TPL system uses over 120,000 metalenses to enable the rapid parallel production of complex nanostructures with nanoscale resolution (up to 113 nm) over a 12 cm2 write field. By programmatically patterning the focal spot array using a spatial light modulator, we further devise an adaptive parallel printing strategy for precise grayscale linewidth modulation and high-throughput production of semi-periodic and fully aperiodic 3D geometries. We envision the future of 3D nanolithography as massively parallel, swiftly adaptive, and computationally agile, enabling transformative applications in microelectronics, fusion energy, quantum technology, biomedicine, and beyond.