Welcome to the Yan Lab! Our group will officially launch in the Department of Physics at Columbia University in January 2026.

We study ultracold neutral atoms and their interactions with light, with applications across quantum science. Our group is particularly interested in developing new technologies and strategies to make neutral-atom quantum platforms more robust and resource-efficient. Examples include creating long-range multi-qubit gates via cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), harnessing destructive interference in loss processes, and implementing feedback control in quantum systems. We also investigate near-term quantum applications on commercially available quantum computing platforms, and using them to identify and understand the sources of error that limit the performance of current quantum devices. Learn more on our Research page.

We are actively looking for motivated postdoctoral researchers, graduate students, and undergraduate students to join the group. If you are interested, please reach out directly to Zhenjie.