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

Lifecycle of a Supersolid Featured in APS Physics Viewpoint and Physics World

Our experimental work on the lifecycle of a supersolid got selected as APS Editors' Suggestion, featured in Physics Viewpoint with an article by Chinmayee Mishra and in Physics World with an article by Oliver Stockdale. Congratulation to the Er-Dy Team!

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Elected member of the ÖAW

In recognition of her outstanding achievements, Francesca Ferlaino was elected a Corresponding Member of the Mathematical and Natural Sciences Class of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

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Birth, life, and death of a dipolar supersolid

Now in PRL! The supersolid phase transition at finite temperature is poorly understood since tools for an adequate theoretical simulation are still lacking. We have characterised the evaporative formation of a dipolar supersolid from a thermal gas using in-situ imaging. The work is to appear in PRL.

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Welcome to Nefeli

Welcome to Nefeli Ioli Sonnberger, who has joined the Er-Dy team for her master thesis.

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Phase coherence in out-of-equilibrium supersolid states of ultracold dipolar atoms

Now in Nature Physics! Supersolids are fluid and solid at the same time. In jointly collaboration work, together with Thierry Giamarchi, theoretical physicist from the University of Geneva, we have for the first time investigated what happens when such a state is brought out of balance.

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Philipp and Gianmaria are now Doctors of Philosophy

Philipp and Gianmaria held their defenses for their PhD thesis and are now officially Doctors of Philosophy. Congratulations and we wish you all the best for your future!

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