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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Profile of David Wineland and Serge Haroche, 2012 Nobel Laureates in Physics

William D. Phillips

Published Apr 12, 2013• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

As a postdoctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978, I trolled the literature, seeking inspiration for my career as an experimental physicist. One article that caught my attention described the first laser-cooling experiment. David Wineland et al. at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology) in Boulder, CO, had trapped a cloud of hot (about 700 K) ions and cooled them to near absolute zero (T < 40 K) by shining light on them (1). (See also ref. 2, which reports an independent and nearly simultaneous demonstration of laser cooling of ions.) Later that year, I was hired by NBS in Gaithersburg, MD and, inspired by Wineland’s landmark experiment, began to work on laser-cooling of neutral atoms.

DOI
10.1073/pnas.1221825110

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As a postdoctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978, I trolled the literature, seeking inspiration for my career as an experimental physicist. One article that caught my attention described the first laser-cooling experiment. David Wineland et al. at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology) in Boulder, CO, had trapped a cloud of hot (about 700 K) ions and cooled them to near absolute zero (T < 40 K) by shining light on them (1). (See also ref. 2, which reports an independent and nearly simultaneous demonstration of laser cooling of ions.) Later that year, I was hired by NBS in Gaithersburg, MD and, inspired by Wineland’s landmark experiment, began to work on laser-cooling of neutral atoms.
Not only is David Wineland a great scientist, as the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences recently confirmed, he is also an exceptional human being.I had the privilege of working for Dave as a PhD student from 1997 to 2001, developing one of the first quantum computers. Our team used individual trapped ions: charged atoms suspended in vacuum by electric fields. Since the early 1970s, Dave had developed a huge range of techniques for trapping ions and controlling their quantum behavior. Our task was to go from controlling a single ion to controlling two, three, or four.The team consisted of NIST staff member Christopher Monroe (now a professor at the University of Maryland’s Joint Quantum Institute and a world leader in his own right), four postdoctoral researchers, a student nearing PhD completion, and me—the junior student. A standard university lab is lucky to have one or two postdoctoral researchers managing a herd of PhD students. Here the postdocs were the backbone of the team.Dave’s quiet, understated, but ever-present guidance was the key that helped me, as a fumbling junior student, find my way among such a crowd of experts. Dave valued everyone, and we all responded to his attitude by giving our best to the team. Of course, we wanted to advance in our careers, but we also wanted to help each other the way Dave helped each of us. His concern for all was reflected in the patience that the senior researchers showed with me.My experience is just one example of Dave’s exceptional conduct toward his colleagues. Through vicissitudes of competition or technical obstacles to research, Dave has good words for everyone, from junior members of his team to internationally recognized scientists. He is the first to recognize the contributions of others and often the last to point out his own. Many members of the quantum physics community have even feared that his modesty has cost him some appreciation, so this long-deserved Nobel Prize is all the sweeter.One can hardly overstate Dave’s influence on the atomic and quantum physics communities over the past five decades. As with Norman Ramsey, his own PhD adviser a generation earlier, it sometimes seems like half of the field’s best researchers have worked with Dave, and the best young physicists in the field still flock to his lab.Dave’s team continues to grow in size and quality and is outstripped only by his own creativity and dedication. Any day now, I fully expect him to astonish me and the rest of his colleagues with yet another new and unlikely idea that somehow turns out beautifully. I hope many more junior PhD students have the same good fortune that I did, the day I came to work for Dave.© 2013 American Institute of Physics.
Serge Haroche y David Wineland recibieron el premio Nobel de física en 2012 en reconocimiento al ´desarrollo de técnicas que abrieron el camino para poder manipular sistemas cuánticos individuales´. Ambos son cazadores que capturan a sus presas en sofisticadas trampas. Haroche y Wineland capturan objetos diferentes y utilizan técnicas distintas. Sin embargo, los métodos que desarrollaron tienen similitudes y la motivación de sus trabajos es casi idéntica. Serge Haroche trabajó durante años en la Ecole Normal Superieure de Paris, Francia, y hoy se es Presidente del College de France en Paris. Arapa fotones, los famosos cuántos de luz, que transportan una energía proporcional a la frecuencia de la radiación. Luego de atraparlos, Haroche hace interactuar sus fotones con átomos de a uno por vez. Por su parte, David Wineland trabaja en el Departamento de Tiempos y Frecuencias del National Institute for Standards and Technologies (NIST) en Boulder, EEUU. Allí atrapa átomos (iones) y logra hacerlos interactuar con haces de luz intensos (láseres). Ha logrado controlar la interacción entre los electrones de en estos átomos y los cuantos asociados al movimiento colectivo de los átomos (estas partículas, llamadas fonones, son excitaciones de las vibraciones de cualquier sistema, al igual que los fotones llevan una energía que está relacionada con la frecuencia de la vibración). Presentaremos aquí una reseña de los principales logros de estos notables investigadores y de las técnicas desarrolladas por ellos.