In starting the journey in the subbasement of CCIS on the University of Alberta campus, we’re looking for people eager to join in, to help build and operate an apparatus to discover the quirks of the quantum universe. Please contact Lindsay if you’d like some more information. Or read this essay she wrote a few years ago about her experience working in a cold atoms lab.
Our lab is part of the NSERC-CREATE program, “Quanta”: QUAntum Nanotechnology Training in Alberta. This is an opportunity for students to gain both academic training and professional development skills to prepare them for possible careers in industy/entrepreneurship. Funding is available for graduate students, but training opportunities are open to all. More information is available at: https://www.cms.ualberta.ca/science/programs/create/quanta
See opportunities below for:
Postdoctoral candidates should have experience in experimental atomic and/or condensed matter physics. Postdoecs will participate in the design, construction, and operation of the apparatus, and supervision of junior lab members. Opportunities for the right candidate are available at anytime; please contact Prof. LeBlanc for more information.
We are looking for highly motivated students interested in working in the laboratory. All applications must be process through the Department of Physics; please see the website for prospective students (link) for details about applying to the University of Alberta. The application deadline is 07 December 2018, though applications received or completed after this date will be considered in the second round of competition.
The following short-term projects are available for master’s and beginning doctoral students and are mostly technical in nature, though students will need to incorporate numerical and analytical modelling of atomic systems in their designs.
Students will learn to operate electronic, optical, and vacuum technologies to produce ultracold quantum gases and gain the experience they will use to guide the lab’s research directions in the study of non-equilibrium quantum gas systems.
Opportunities for undergraduates are ongoing, and as the lab is in development, there will be chances to participate in Physics honours thesis (Phys 499) and/or Engineering Physics “Capstone” projects. For summer research opportunities, students should look into NSERC’s USRA program (check out this Physics Department link in late Fall for the following summer).
Some of the projects recently pursued by undergraduate students:
- Ultrahigh-vacuum: design and prototype construction of an atom chip-holder for a UHV system compatible with a load-lock stage.
- Optics: design and construction of a high-finesse cavity for optical filtering
- Optics and electronics: design and construction of a general-purpose servo system for stabilizing laser power through AOMs and optical fibres.
- Programming: a Python-based imaging and data analysis program
- Optics: design and construction of an optical imaging system, including digital image capture, for high-resolution imaging of atomic clouds.
- Electronics: a microwave circuit to address 87Rb hyperfine transitions
- Optics: a transport system to move atoms between one vacuum chamber and another
- Electronics: design and construction of a high-precision high-current switch for an inductive magnetic load