Undergraduates
I know that matter can be converted into energy. Is it not possible, then, that energy can be converted into matter? If so, how?
Professor Benjamin Lev received his bachelor’s degree in physics from Princeton University in 1999, graduating magna cum laude. He earned a Ph.D. from Caltech in 2005, working in the quantum optics group of Hideo Mabuchi. His thesis research involved the development of novel atom chip techniques for the tight confinement and manipulation ultracold atoms and Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) and for the coupling of them to photons using chip-based cavity quantum electrodynamics (cQED). He won the Everhart Distinguished Graduate Student Lectureship in 2004, and his public lecture on the atom chip may be viewed here.
As a National Research Council postdoctoral research fellow (2006-2007), Professor Lev worked with Jun Ye at JILA (Boulder) on the Stark deceleration of polar molecules. His work focused on the magnetic trapping of ground state polar molecules in the presence of tunable electric fields, which he and his JILA colleagues demonstrated for the first time in 2006.
Professor Lev joined the Department of Physics at Illinois in January 2008, and completed remodeling and equipping his laboratory in September 2008.
Exploring strongly correlated matter with exotic atoms, atom chips, and cavity QED
Lev's research program explores uncharted regimes of strongly correlated matter by pushing the experimental state-of-the-art in atomic physics, quantum optics, and condensed matter physics. Lev's group strives to create quantum liquid crystals through the use of strong, long-range, and anisotropic atomic dipolar interactions. The dipole-dipole interaction adds an entirely new feature to ultracold atomic physics and may be harnessed to explore collective phenomena that emerge when the dipole-dipole interaction dominates kinetic energy. We demonstrated the first laser cooling of bosonic and fermionic dysprosium to ultracold temperatures in 2009, a necessary step toward creating quantum liquid crystals.
In addition, Lev plans to use ultracold dysprosium, the most magnetic atom, as a probe in novel microscopes possessing unsurpassed sensitivity and resolution for the imaging of strongly correlated materials, such as high-temperature superconductors. The Lev group works closely with the theory group of Paul Goldbart to investigate the soft quantum phases that arise when BECs are confined in multimode optical cavities. We predict that supersolids and superglasses can be realized in this many-body cavity QED system.
Prospective graduate students and postdocs are welcome to contact Professor Lev at benlev @ illinois.edu.