Students in the Davidson AMO Physics Lab
I am always eager to have interested students join the AMO lab. There are regular opportunities for work during the academic term (independent studies, honors, etc.) and also for paid research work during summers. Students who work in the AMO lab gain valuable experience and skills in a wide range of areas including: lasers and optics, electronics, computer programming and instrumentation control, ultra-high vacuum technology, and of course, atomic physics! Any interested student - please contact Mr. Yukich!
Alumni and Current Students:
Cabell Fisher '99 was the first student to join the lab. Cabell completed an independent study during his senior year in which he constructed an optical wave meter capable of measuring a tunable laser's frequency to a precision of about 1 GHz. Such a device is available commercially, but costs roughly $25,000.
Phil Stewart '01 was our second student, working in the lab during the summer of 2000. During this time he helped to set up and test the ion trap and also re-built the wavemeter.
Diana Pendergrast '02 joined the lab during her senior year for independent research. She helped to conduct the first experiments in the photodetachment spectroscopy of the trapped O- ion, and she also carried out the initial data analysis. Her results were presented at two meetings of the American Physical Society and were published in Physical Review A. Download her published paper.
Anders Langworthy '04 first joined the lab in the summer of 2002. He continued the ongoing work in the combined-fields photodetachment experiment, and also began a project to study evaporative cooling from the Penning trap. He returned to the lab for the summers of 2003 and 2004 and continued his independent research during the Fall 2003 term. During his tenure in the lab, Anders suggested a complete replacement of the software that controls the ion trap and manages data acquisition. He then initiated and completed a total re-writing of our 1980s-era FORTH code in LabVIEW. A portion of his work was published in Physical Review A. Download the paper, or, download a poster on this work given by Anders at a meeting of the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society. (Photo by Mike Ruiz)
Rachel McCord '04 was our first bio-physics major, with her major designed through the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. As part of her major, she built a professional-grade pair of optical tweezers, shown above right. The tweezers, also known as laser tweezers, make it possible to trap, manipulate, and investigate a multitude of microscopic objects from DNA to living cells and other micron-sized materials. Rachel's construction of our tweezer system was greatly helped by a two-week collaborative visit to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (Gaithersburg, MD), where she gained useful experience while working with other scientists. Collaborating with Dr. Karen Bernd of the Davidson Biology Department, we are now working on a project to study the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas. Download a recent PowerPoint presentation given by Rachel in the Physics Department Seminar Series. Or, download a poster given by Rachel at a meeting of the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society. This project has been supported by the Duke Foundation.
James Wells '07 joined the AMO lab in the summer after his sophomore year, and returned for the summer after his junior year. He worked on two experiments, including the evaporative cooling project started by Anders Langworthy and an experiment to study the spectroscopy of the S- ion at its lowest detachment threshold. James' work was presented at several meetings of the American Physical Society, including this talk he gave on the evaporative cooling experiment. The second experiment led to James' year-long senior honors project, titled "Photodetachment Spectroscopy of the Negative Sulfur Ion at the 2P1/2→3P2 Threshold in an External Magnetic Field". Download one of his posters.
Dr. Craig Butler visited
the AMO laboratory during the summer of 2005 and collaborated with James Wells
on the evaporative cooling experiment. Craig and I were graduate school
buddies and collaborators at the University of Virginia. Craig helped with
a complete overhaul of the ion trap vacuum system and spearheaded data
acquisition for the evaporative cooling experiment.
Bobby Mohr '09 joined the AMO lab during the summer of 2007 following his sophomore year. Bobby quickly mastered the ion trap and took charge of our newest experiment, to conduct photodetachment spectroscopy near the lowest detachment threshold of the O- ion. Download a poster on his experiment. Bobby also taught himself LabVIEW and made a huge improvement in automation of the ion trap data acquisition system.
