Our research efforts span several directions:

Rare earth ion impurity atoms in crystalline hosts feature electronic spin and optical transitions with long coherence times and the potential for strong interactions. Efficiently isolating and manipulating individual rare earth impurities is an outstanding challenge, however, since their optical transitions are typically E1-forbidden and therefore slow. Our research is aimed at circumventing this challenge by integrating single rare earth ions into nanophotonic optical structures that can enhance the emission rate by many orders of magnitude.

One current area of interest is developing telecom-wavelength single photon sources and quantum memories for quantum repeaters based on single Erbium ions. Another is developing strongly interacting few-spin networks to study spin dynamics and applications to quantum information processing.

Neutral atom arrays are a promising platform for quantum information and simulation. Reconfigurable optical tweezer potentials afford a high degree of control, while highly-excited Rydberg states allow strong interactions to realize multi-qubit gates and strong spin-spin interactions.

Our group has developed a new platform for neutral atom qubits based on Ytterbium atoms. In comparison to alkali atoms, alkaline-earth-like Yb has a richer level structure that offers unique opportunities for cooling, trap loading, state initialization and readout. Furthermore, the presence of strong hyperfine coupling in the Rydberg states creates new possibilities for Rydberg-mediated interactions.

New materials for quantum defects

In collaboration with the de Leon, Lyon and Cava groups at Princeton, we are developing materials spectroscopy tools and techniques to search for new materials capable of hosting highly-coherent quantum defects, including color centers, transition metal and rare-earth ion impurities.

Other research interests