Plenary Event
Quantum West Plenary
27 January 2025 • 1:00 PM - 3:05 PM PST | Moscone North/South, Moscone Center, 207/215 (Level 2 South)
Session Chair: Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop, The Univ. of Queensland (Australia)
1:00 PM - 1:05 PM
Welcome and Opening Remarks
1:05 PM - 1:45 PM
Quantum structured light takes shape
Quantum structured light offers a roadmap to high-dimensional and multi-dimensional quantum states by exploiting all of light’s many degrees of freedom at the quantum level. In this talk, I will review the recent progress in quantum entanglement of photons in their spatial degree of freedom: quantum structured light. I will explain how to create high-dimensional quantum states in the laboratory, how to measure them, and review the present state of the art in the field. I will show how the patterns can be abstracted, mixing degrees of freedom to produce quantum topologies in light, introducing new paradigms for quantum state observables and classification. Finally, I will outline the advantages and disadvantages of using such single photon and entangled states in real-world applications, offering a perspective on the present challenges and exciting opportunities in the field.
Prof. Andrew Forbes (SPIE Fellow) is a Distinguished Professor at the U. Witwatersrand (South Africa) where he leads a laboratory for Structured Light. Andrew is active in promoting photonics in Africa and is Director of South Africa’s Quantum Technology Initiative. He has won several awards, including the Georg Forster prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for outstanding contributions to photonics and the SAIP Gold Medal, the highest award for physics in South Africa. Andrew spends his time having fun with the taxpayers’ money, exploring structured light in classical and quantum optics.
1:45 PM - 2:25 PM
Optical atomic clocks: refining the definition of time and advancing the future of metrology
Atomic clocks first developed in the 1950’s have become a mainstay of modern synchronization, navigation and communication. With an unprecedented accuracy, now surpassing 1 part in 10^18, optical atomic clocks would lose only 1 s per 15 billion years, could measure a meter stick with a length resolution at quark level, and are currently being used as tabletop experiments to search for physics beyond the standard model. This talk will take a forward-facing perspective on the evolution of atomic clocks, their enabling technologies, and developing applications. More specifically, I will explore the optical technology at the heart of atomic clocks and how these enabling technologies will help serve to advance the field of precision metrology.
Dr. Tara Fortier is a physicist and project leader in NIST’s Time and Frequency Division. She leads a research group that performs both basic and applied research in the areas of laser source development for quantum networking and for precision optical and microwave measurement of atomic clocks. Dr. Fortier is broadly involved with leadership in several scientific organizations, including NIST’s Women in STEM executive board, as a NIST representative to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy working group on National Quantum Workforce Development, as well as a fellow for the Optical Society of America and the American Physical Society. She was also the 2023 winner of the SPIE Harold E. Edgerton Award in High-Speed Optics. Finally, she is committed to the advancement and advocacy of underrepresented groups in STEM.
2:25 PM - 3:05 PM
Looking for fossils of the Big Bang in the laboratory
When the largest telescopes can’t see all the way back to the Big Bang, and when the highest-energy accelerators cannot produce more massive particles, what is one to do? Laboratory-based precision measurements offer glimpses into the distant past and into the ultra-high-energy present. I will discuss how some of the most precise laboratory measurements are performed, with particular focus on measurements of the dipole moments of two relatively light particles, electrons and muons. I will ty to put the results in the context of the broader search for physics beyond the Standard Model.
Eric Cornell received his B.S. from Stanford University in 1985, and his PhD from MIT in 1990. His doctoral research, with Dave Pritchard, was on precision mass spectroscopy of single trapped molecular ions. Cornell went to JILA in Boulder, Colorado in 1990. Since 1992 he has been a senior scientist with the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He is a Fellow of JILA and Professor Adjoint in the Physics Department of the University of Colorado. Research interests include various aspects of ultracold atoms—in particular, Bose-Einstein condensation in strongly interacting Bose gases, and related few-body physics. He is also working on using precision molecular spectroscopy to explore possible extensions to the Standard Model of particle physics. His most recent research includes a project to measure the electric dipole moment of the electron.
Cornell received the Stratton Award from NIST in 1995, the Carl Zeiss Award in 1996, the Fritz London Prize in 1996, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 1996, the 1997 I.I. Rabi Award, the 1997 King Faisal International Prize for Science, the 1995-96 AAAS Newcomb-Cleveland Prize, the 1997 Alan T. Waterman Award, the Lorentz Medal in 1998, in 1999 the R. W. Wood Prize and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics, and in 2000 was elected as a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2005, he was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2012 he was awarded the Ioannes Marcus Marci Medal for Molecular Spectroscopy. He shares the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics with Carl Wieman and Wolfgang Ketterle.
MENU: Coffee, decaf, and tea will be available outside the presentation room.
SETUP: Theater style seating.
1:00 PM - 1:05 PM
Welcome and Opening Remarks
1:05 PM - 1:45 PM
Quantum structured light takes shape
 |
Andrew Forbes
Univ. of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (South Africa) |
Quantum structured light offers a roadmap to high-dimensional and multi-dimensional quantum states by exploiting all of light’s many degrees of freedom at the quantum level. In this talk, I will review the recent progress in quantum entanglement of photons in their spatial degree of freedom: quantum structured light. I will explain how to create high-dimensional quantum states in the laboratory, how to measure them, and review the present state of the art in the field. I will show how the patterns can be abstracted, mixing degrees of freedom to produce quantum topologies in light, introducing new paradigms for quantum state observables and classification. Finally, I will outline the advantages and disadvantages of using such single photon and entangled states in real-world applications, offering a perspective on the present challenges and exciting opportunities in the field.
Prof. Andrew Forbes (SPIE Fellow) is a Distinguished Professor at the U. Witwatersrand (South Africa) where he leads a laboratory for Structured Light. Andrew is active in promoting photonics in Africa and is Director of South Africa’s Quantum Technology Initiative. He has won several awards, including the Georg Forster prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for outstanding contributions to photonics and the SAIP Gold Medal, the highest award for physics in South Africa. Andrew spends his time having fun with the taxpayers’ money, exploring structured light in classical and quantum optics.
1:45 PM - 2:25 PM
Optical atomic clocks: refining the definition of time and advancing the future of metrology
 |
Tara Fortier
National Institute of Standards and Technology (United States) |
Atomic clocks first developed in the 1950’s have become a mainstay of modern synchronization, navigation and communication. With an unprecedented accuracy, now surpassing 1 part in 10^18, optical atomic clocks would lose only 1 s per 15 billion years, could measure a meter stick with a length resolution at quark level, and are currently being used as tabletop experiments to search for physics beyond the standard model. This talk will take a forward-facing perspective on the evolution of atomic clocks, their enabling technologies, and developing applications. More specifically, I will explore the optical technology at the heart of atomic clocks and how these enabling technologies will help serve to advance the field of precision metrology.
Dr. Tara Fortier is a physicist and project leader in NIST’s Time and Frequency Division. She leads a research group that performs both basic and applied research in the areas of laser source development for quantum networking and for precision optical and microwave measurement of atomic clocks. Dr. Fortier is broadly involved with leadership in several scientific organizations, including NIST’s Women in STEM executive board, as a NIST representative to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy working group on National Quantum Workforce Development, as well as a fellow for the Optical Society of America and the American Physical Society. She was also the 2023 winner of the SPIE Harold E. Edgerton Award in High-Speed Optics. Finally, she is committed to the advancement and advocacy of underrepresented groups in STEM.
2:25 PM - 3:05 PM
Looking for fossils of the Big Bang in the laboratory
 |
Eric Cornell
National Institute of Standards and Technology (United States) Nobel Prize in Physics 2001 |
When the largest telescopes can’t see all the way back to the Big Bang, and when the highest-energy accelerators cannot produce more massive particles, what is one to do? Laboratory-based precision measurements offer glimpses into the distant past and into the ultra-high-energy present. I will discuss how some of the most precise laboratory measurements are performed, with particular focus on measurements of the dipole moments of two relatively light particles, electrons and muons. I will ty to put the results in the context of the broader search for physics beyond the Standard Model.
Eric Cornell received his B.S. from Stanford University in 1985, and his PhD from MIT in 1990. His doctoral research, with Dave Pritchard, was on precision mass spectroscopy of single trapped molecular ions. Cornell went to JILA in Boulder, Colorado in 1990. Since 1992 he has been a senior scientist with the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He is a Fellow of JILA and Professor Adjoint in the Physics Department of the University of Colorado. Research interests include various aspects of ultracold atoms—in particular, Bose-Einstein condensation in strongly interacting Bose gases, and related few-body physics. He is also working on using precision molecular spectroscopy to explore possible extensions to the Standard Model of particle physics. His most recent research includes a project to measure the electric dipole moment of the electron.
Cornell received the Stratton Award from NIST in 1995, the Carl Zeiss Award in 1996, the Fritz London Prize in 1996, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 1996, the 1997 I.I. Rabi Award, the 1997 King Faisal International Prize for Science, the 1995-96 AAAS Newcomb-Cleveland Prize, the 1997 Alan T. Waterman Award, the Lorentz Medal in 1998, in 1999 the R. W. Wood Prize and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics, and in 2000 was elected as a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2005, he was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2012 he was awarded the Ioannes Marcus Marci Medal for Molecular Spectroscopy. He shares the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics with Carl Wieman and Wolfgang Ketterle.
Event Details
FORMAT: General session with live audience Q&A to follow presentations.MENU: Coffee, decaf, and tea will be available outside the presentation room.
SETUP: Theater style seating.