Er-Dy LAB

The Er-Dy LAB focuses on many-body quantum phenomena in a dipolar quantum mixture of two highly magnetic lanthanides, Erbium and Dysprosium.

The designing process of the experimental apparatus started in late 2014 and several concepts have been developed in collaboration with our ERBIUM Team and the Er-Team at Harvard University led by Markus Greiner.

Er-Dy mixtures

In 2018, we produced the first quantum degenerate dipolar mixture of Erbium and Dysprosium!!

This two rare-earth species are highly magnetic with a magnetic moment of 7µ_B and 10µ_Bfor Er and Dy respectively. A crucial aspect is that the have very similar atomic properties such as melting point, mass and the optical spectrum. The Er-Dy LAB is able to either operate on a single species (Er or Dy) or to produce dipolar imbalanced Bose-Bose, Bose-Fermi and Fermi-Fermi Er-Dy mixtures.

A microscope for dipolar atoms

A quantum gas microscope is an optical system that allows to image single atoms in an optical lattice in situ. This conceptually simple, yet technologically demanding technique makes it possible to directly study the interactions between atoms in periodic potentials, a scenario which is only possible to simulate numerically for very limited system sizes. In contrast to other groups, we are aiming to realize such a microscope with atoms featuring a large, permanent magnetic dipole moment. The inter-atomic dipole-dipole interaction adds a new term to the Hamiltonian describing the ensemble, and therefore allows to investigate a whole new class of quantum systems. The behavior of the system will critically depend on the interplay between the different interaction terms, whose magnitude and direction dependence may be tuned experimentally over a wide range. Thus, a large variety of interesting quantum systems can be simulated and investigated.

A full list of the Er-Dy Lab Publications can be found here

Interested in joining us? Check out here.

Lab news

Francesca Ferlaino named APS Fellow 2019

Experimental physicist Francesca Ferlaino was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in September. With the Fellowship, the members of the Society honor outstanding scientific achievements of their colleagues. The outstanding work of the physicist was just recently honored with the Junior BEC Award in Spain.

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Congratulations to Francesca for the Junior BEC Award

Last week Francesca Ferlaino has received the Junior BEC Award 2019 for her “pioneering work on Bose-Einstein condensation of dipolar Erbium atoms and more generally degenerate quantum gases with long-range interactions and for realizing novel quantum phases of matter with such systems”.

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The Italian ambassador to Austria, Sergio Barbanti, visits the AG Ferlaino

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Long-lived supersolid behavior

In a joint work from the RARE and ERBIUM team as well as our theory collaborator from IQOQI, Rick van Bijnen, we have observed hallmarks of supersolidity in dipolar quantum gases of Erbium and Dysprosium. Our work is highlighted in a Viewpoint article in Physics by T. Donner.

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ESQ Discovery project awarded to Manfred

Manfred has been awarded one of five ESQ Discovery projects, where the Erwin Schrödinger Center for Quantum Science & Technology supports radically new ideas, innovative research and high-risk projects, before they are sufficiently grown and competitive tosucceed in established European or national funding schemes.

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Benedict joins T-REQS-lab