November 2025
Excited to announce that UConn’s new, fully online, Quantum Science & Technology Certificate officially launches. I join colleagues D. Valente, J. Hancock, D. McCarron, G. Dunne and P. Volkov in bringing this cutting-edge program to life. Designed for professionals from diverse backgrounds, the certificate offers a sequential roadmap from quantum fundamentals to quantum computing, materials, and sensing.
August 2025
“Don’t Let the Professor Drive the Bus!”
Professor Wright, from Adelphi University, ‘squeezed’ his students in their university van and drove up to Storrs from Long Island to visit Ultracold AMO labs at UConn! It has been delightful meeting and talking to them… and we finally found that our Rb vacuum chamber is 20 years old!
https://cosmicpathways.org/2025/08/20/dont-let-the-professor-drive-the-bus-our-trip-to-uconns-laser-cooling-labs/
June 2025
Rubidium 85 MOT obtained in the UHV chamber (~10-11 mbar) . We observe a lifetime of multiple minutes. The MOT in the image is still clearly off the focal point.
June 2025
We attended the 2025 Atomic Physics GRC at the Salve Regina University in Newport, RI. With no surprise, the conference has been great and we all had great exchanges with the other attendees.
Here is a picture of the UConn crew, composed by the McCarron’s group and ours.
May 2025
The first prototype of our science cavity mount is here! Together with the custom coated supermirrors…
May 2025
Congratulations to “ours” undergraduates Phoenix and Leilani for obtaining a summer internship at Zygo and Coherent, respectively!
May 2025
Christopher and Vatsal have brilliantly completed their undergraduate path! They will begin their new chapter both as graduate students! Christopher will join the University of Central Florida, Vatsal will be part of the incoming graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn).
April 2025
On the 14th of April (you guess why…), we participated to the Quantum Day organized by the Connecticut Science Center in Hartford. We illustrated the beauty of quantum mechanics with our demos. Thank you to Leilani and Dave Perry for the huge help.
February 2025
Rubidium 85 MOT observed with a simple webcam!
The slow build-up time indicates a MOT lifetime of ~1sec in our LVIS chamber.
Also, notice Jack hovering around the experiment.
January 2025
Thanks to a great effort led by Prof. Nora Berrah, on January 24-26, the UConn Physics Department hosted a successful APS Conference for Undergraduate Women and Gender Minorities in Physics (Cu*iP)!
See details here.
Kaley and Simone are part of the local organizing committee.
December 2024
We participated in the STEM career showcase organized by the Connecticut Science Center with a participation of ~1300 middle and high school students! We brought a couple of ours hands-on Quantum Demo and had the pleasure to discuss about our different STEM career paths. We represented the UConn Physics Department and QuantumCT partnership.
Find more details here.
December 2024
We installed a new 4’x12′ optical table in our Lab!
We now completed our collection “four-feet collection”:
two 4’x6′ tables, one 4’x8′, one 4’x10′, and one 4’x12′!
November 2024
Another crucial goal achieved… here is our first laser locked to the ultra-stable reference cavity via PDH Lock!
Notice the improvement when we engage the fast feedback.
October 2024
We spent a wonderful day at the University of Rhode Island. Our grad student had the chance to prove Einstein wrong…
Thank you to the URI Physics Department and, in particular, to Prof. Wenchao Ge for the invitation!
September 2024
Kaley is the 2024 Employee Appreciation Sundae Contest Winner! Her “Share of the Pie” was selected among more than 80 Sundaes… and after trying it, we understood why!
August 2024
Our undergraduate student Leilani was awarded with a SULI program internship! During the fall 2024, she will join the Lawrence Livermore National lab for 16 weeks internship.
Congratulations and good luck Leilani!
July 2024
Our rubidium apparatus is under vacuum, MOT coils are operational and both trapping and repumping beams have been pre-aligned.
Congratulations to our young graduate students!
June 2024
We perform saturated absorption spetroscopy in a reference Rb cell with our 780nm lasers.
We can reliably lock our lasers to the error signal generated via Frequency Modulation Spectroscopy!
May 2024
After major cleaning, reorganization, and final touches our lab is finally fully operational.
Now, we feel at home!
A huge thank to Esteban, Kaley, Jack, Joseph, and Harrison for the hard work!
May 2024
Our ULE cavity has been mounted and put under vacuum.
Thank you very much to Dan McCarron’s group for their help with this last, critical, process!
April 2024
Leilani’s Mach-Zehnder interferometer is aligned and shows the first interference pattern!
This great achievement paves the way for the development of quantum education-oriented demonstrations.
August 2023
The Colombo Lab begins working at the University of Connecticut!
The Colombo Lab 