W. M. Keck Foundation Award...

Mark G. Raizen, Professor of Physics


Topics: Atomic Physics, Optical Physics, Laser Cooling, Nanotechnology, Nobel Prize, Research


In a society of near instantaneous gratification, this represents years of painstaking research and discipline. You can see more of Mark's research here at the research groups' home page. I salute this achievement and am proud to call he and his wife Alicia good friends of the family.

AUSTIN, Texas — The W. M. Keck Foundation has awarded scientists at The University of Texas at Austin two grants totaling $1.5 million to develop a powerful, alternative method for cooling atoms and involve more undergraduate students in using new advanced technologies for research.

Known for supporting high-impact research with the potential to reshape scientific understanding, the Keck Foundation’s contributions to The University of Texas at Austin total more than $7 million with the two new grants announced this month.

A grant of $1 million from the Keck Foundation’s Science and Engineering Research Grant Program will support the “Ultra-Bright Atom Laser” project led by Mark Raizen, a professor in the Department of Physics. The project proposes a new method for cooling atoms in a gas phase toward absolute zero.

Until now, laser cooling has been the standard method for cooling atoms and was recognized by a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997. Raizen's method could be far more effective than the existing laser-cooling practice and result in an ultra-bright atom laser, predicted to surpass the current state-of-the-art by a factor of 100 million. Applications of the powerful new atom laser include innovations in nanoscience, tests of fundamental physics and new, noninvasive detection of gravitational anomalies, such as underground tunnels or oil and gas reservoirs.

UT News:
Keck Foundation Awards $1.5 Million for New Method to Cool Atoms and Student Research

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