Atomic & Optical Physics

Nobel Prize Physics: Prof. Ketterle won the 2001 Nobel Prize for achieving Bose-Einstein condensation. Quantum mechanics meets experiment!

Atomic & Optical Physics

⚛️ Quantum Mechanics Meets Experiment

This course bridges the gap between theoretical quantum mechanics and cutting-edge experimental physics. You'll learn how abstract quantum concepts like superposition, entanglement, and quantum statistics manifest in real laboratory systems.

🔬 Laboratory Physics

  • • Laser cooling to nanokelvin temperatures
  • • Trapping single atoms and ions
  • • Creating Bose-Einstein condensates
  • • Measuring quantum states of light

🎯 Applications

  • • Quantum computing with trapped ions
  • • Precision metrology beyond Heisenberg limit
  • • Quantum simulation of many-body systems
  • • Fundamental tests of quantum mechanics

🏆 Nobel Prize-Winning Research

Prof. Wolfgang Ketterle won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics (shared with Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman) for achieving Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms. This was the first realization of a quantum state of matter predicted by Einstein in 1925!

"At ultralow temperatures, a gas of bosonic atoms can condense into the same quantum ground state, forming a macroscopic quantum object where all atoms move in lockstep. This allows us to see quantum mechanics with the naked eye."

📚 Course Content

Part I: Quantum Optics (Topics 1-6)

  • • Classical vs quantum description of light
  • • Non-classical light states: squeezing, single photons
  • • Entanglement and EPR paradox
  • • Quantum metrology and Heisenberg limit
  • • Coherent states and photon statistics

Part II: Light-Atom Interactions (Topics 7-12)

  • • Two-level atoms in electromagnetic fields
  • • Optical Bloch equations and Rabi oscillations
  • • Light forces: dipole force and radiation pressure
  • • Dressed atom picture and AC Stark shift
  • • Laser cooling mechanisms (Doppler, Sisyphus)
  • • Achieving sub-microkelvin temperatures

Part III: Ultracold Atoms & Quantum Gases (Topics 13-21)

  • • Evaporative cooling to nanokelvin regime
  • • Bose-Einstein condensation: theory and experiment
  • • Weakly interacting Bose gases (Gross-Pitaevskii equation)
  • • Degenerate Fermi gases and Fermi surfaces
  • • BEC-BCS crossover with Feshbach resonances
  • • Ion trapping and quantum gates for quantum computing

🔗 Connections to Other Courses

Prerequisites:

Leads to:

  • • Quantum Field Theory: Quantized EM field
  • • Quantum information and computing
  • • Condensed matter physics (superfluidity, superconductivity)

🎓 Video Lectures

This course features 21 topics (27 video segments) from Prof. Wolfgang Ketterle's MIT course on Atomic and Optical Physics. The lectures cover both theoretical foundations and experimental techniques used in modern quantum optics laboratories.

Watch MIT Ketterle Lectures →