For quantum computers to achieve their promise, regardless of the qubit technology, significant improvements to both performance and scale are required. Quantum-dot-based qubits in silicon have recently enjoyed dramatic advances in fabrication and control techniques. The “exchange-only” modality is of particular interest, as it avoids control elements that are difficult to scale such as microwave fields, photonics, or ferromagnetic gradients. …

Fission energy is currently the largest source of zero-carbon electrical power in the United States, but expanded use has stalled due to high construction costs, long schedules, and lack of policies that credit the low carbon emissions from nuclear power.  This talk will broadly review questions relevant to the future use of fission power, including challenges to achieving deep decarbonization without nuclear, …

Sensors based on atoms enable high precision and accuracy which make them attractive for a range of applications including quantum sensing, quantum computation, and quantum simulation.  I will discuss two experiments at UCLA towards sensing motion with laser-cooled atoms.   The first borrows techniques from cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) to use an optical cavity to directly read out the motion of …

Experimental quantum science has seen major advances in just the last decade. Here I will give a broad overview of the current state-of-the-field of using quantum devices to perform computation and simulation, before diving into one platform in particular: individual atoms held in optical tweezers (a dynamically reconfigurable crystal of light). I will discuss how arrays of single atoms are …

Following the successful launch in December of 2021 of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the global astronomical community has celebrated the exciting early results from the observatory. We’ve seen amazing nearby views of dust-enshrouded star formation all the way to distant galaxies in a young universe. In this talk, Dr. Kevin Hainline (HMC ’06), a member of the science …

Please join us for our fourth round of Senior Theses Talks at 4:30pm in Shanahan B460.

Emma Lickey, Electronic Transport Measurements in Thin-Films

Natalia Hernandez, Analyzing the Graphene Synthesis Process via Microscopy

Inci Anali, Capturing Collective Radiation of 2D Atomic Arrays for Quantum Computing

(Masks will be required in the colloquium room)

Please join us for our second round of Clinic Problem/Design Talks at 4:30pm in Shanahan B460.

(Masks will be required in the colloquium room)

Please join us for our third round of Senior Theses Talks at 4:30pm in Shanahan B460.

Mavis Stone, Application of Background Oriented Schlieren for Water Surface Measurements

Albany Blackburn, Dark Matter Interactions with Axion-Like Particle Mediators

Ella Blake, Anisotropic Magnetoresistance in FeRh Thin films

(Masks will be required in the colloquium room)

Please join us for our first round of Clinic Problem/Design Talks at 4:30pm in Shanahan B460.

(Masks will be required in the colloquium room)

Please join us for our second round of Senior Theses Talks at 4:30pm in Shanahan B460.

Helen Chaffee, Hexagonal vortices during grain coarsening in colloidal crystals

Eric Corona, Dislocation reactions during granule rotations of a crystal

(Masks will be required in the colloquium room)

Please join us for our first round of Senior Theses Talks at 4:30pm in Shanahan B460.

Catherine Phillips, A model that uses disorder in 2D materials to generate quantitative predictions about electrical transport

Derek Li, A New Model of Dark Matter Leptogenesis: UV-IR

Coleman Gliddon, Leptogenesis via UV Dark Matter

(Masks will be required in the colloquium room)

Unlike a paper, a talk proceeds synchronously and demands that the speaker provide more explicit reminders of the underlying structure of the presentation to keep the audience engaged. Join us as they lead our discussion on how to give effective talks and what to avoid to prevent 'losing' your audience.

Our alumni panel will be discussing their career paths after leaving HMC. This is your chance to pick their brains and ask them questions about getting a job and what life after college is like. We will also be presenting the Bell, Townsend, Rojansky and Physics Community Award recipients.

(image from approvedcourses.com)

This colloquium will be an informational meeting about graduate school and fellowship, so bring your burning questions in! Various HMC Physics Faculty will talk about graduate programs and options, including the application process. They will also talk about fellowships and scholarships as they apply to graduate school and post-baccalaureate programs.

Searching for exotic electronic properties beyond those of semiconductors is a research frontier where novel crystal growth techniques and fundamental physics overlap. In this presentation I will introduce molecular beam epitaxy as a tool for synthesizing atomically precise thin films with exquisite precision in order to engineer exotic quantum phases that cannot exist in naturally occurring crystals. The physical paradigms …