Stony Brook
Undergraduate Research: Stony Brook University
Senior thesis
I became particularly interested in the optical pumping experiment of my senior laboratory class. The experiment became the focus of my honors thesis as I continued working on the project after we had moved on to the next experiment in class.
I noticed a strange deformation of the microwave transition lineshape at high Rb density, and worked to identify the cause. I am still trying to figure this one out.
Ultracold Quantum Systems Group
At Stony Brook University, I worked in Professor Dominik Schneble’s Ultracold Quantum Systems Group, which performs experiments in quantum simulation with Bose Einstein Condensates of Rubidium. The group loads the condensates into optical lattices formed by counter-propagating beams.
My undergraduate research in Schneble’s lab was simple work in optics, focused on creating a system that would allow the group to subject the condensates to arbitrary potentials beyond just an optical lattice. In the process, I learned about various optical elements, diffraction limited and high-NA imaging, and how to calculate and analyze image data in Mathematica.
I experimented with using a Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) to shape a laser reflected from its surface, following the Master’s thesis of Phillip J Zupancic in Prof. Dr. Markus Greiner’s lab at Harvard, who had been using it for quantum gas microscope experiments. In my first two semesters, I read through the thesis and worked to characterize the DMD and explore its beam-shaping capabilities. This was my first introduction to Fourier optics and spatial light modulators (SLM), which intrigued me so much that it ended up being the focus of my Fulbright research in Sweden.
Below is a simple guide I wrote to operating the DMD I used, and some measurements I took exploring the blazed condition.
Guide to the LC4500 Digital Micromirror Device
I eventually settled on imaging the DMD surface in a simple 4f configuration. In my last two semesters, I designed and tested a setup that maximized imaging resolution while fitting the geometric constraints of Professor Schneble’s setup.