Lene vestergaard hau biography template

It's nifty to look into the chamber and see a clump of ultracold atoms floating there. In this odd state, light takes on a more human dimension; you can almost touch it. The way that this has been achieved involves rather a technical description. The first step was the creation of the "candlestick" by Hau and Golovchenko in For the experiment to slow light the "candlestick" is used to cool sodium atoms to 50 billionths of a degree above absolute zero.

They are then trapped in a magnet and cooled still further by evaporation; a Bose - Einstein condensate containing millions of atoms results.

Lene vestergaard hau biography template

Such a condensate was predicted by Satyendranath Bose and Einstein in but it was not until that the technology was available to produce temperatures low enough to create a condensate in an experiment. Although the condensate contains millions of atoms it behaves as if it were a single atom, but still exhibiting the usual particle wave duality.

The reason for the behaviour of the Bose - Einstein condensate is essentially due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle for at such low temperatures the momentum of the atoms is known accurately so their positions cannot be accurately known so, in some sense, spread out. Hau produced slow light by inducing quantum interference in the condensate.

Many advances are expected to result from these stunning experiments such as discovering fundamental properties of Bose - Einstein condensates. Other advances which may result could revolutionise telecommunications and computers with advances such as producing optical switches that are operated by a single photon. February References [ edit ].

Harvard University. Retrieved Archived from the original on Energy Science". Retrieved 21 December — via discovermagazine. Archived from the original PDF on News nature : news—8. S2CID Physical Review Letters. Bibcode : PhRvL. PMC PMID A; Hau, Lene Vestergaard Archived from the original on 7 February Retrieved 3 March August Archived from the original on April 6, Bibcode : PhRvL..

Bibcode : Natur. Nature Photonics. Bibcode : NaPho Archived from the original on April 11, Nature Physics. Bibcode : NatPh D; Lene Vestergaard Hau Applied Physics Letters. Bibcode : ApPhL.. Prior to joining the Harvard faculty in , she was a senior scientist at the Rowland Institute for Science in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and holds a Ph.

Hau led a team who succeeded in slowing a pulse of light to 15 miles per hour and also brought light to a stop. They took matters even further as they stopped and extinguished a light pulse in one part of space, and subsequently revived it in a different location. In the process, the light pulse is converted to a perfect matter copy that can be stored - put on the shelf - sculpted, and then turned back to light.

She received a PhD from Aarhus University. In , she led a Harvard University team who, by use of a Bose-Einstein condensate, succeeded in slowing a beam of light to about 17 metres per second, and, in , was able to stop a beam completely. Later work based on these experiments led to the transfer of light to matter, then from matter back into light, a process with important implications for quantum encryption and quantum computing.

More recent work has involved research into novel interactions between ultracold atoms and nanoscopic-scale systems. In addition to teaching physics and applied physics, she has taught Energy Science at Harvard, involving photovoltaic cells, nuclear power, batteries, and photosynthesis. As well as her own experiments and research, she is often invited to speak at international conferences, and is involved in structuring the science policies of various institutions.

She was keynote speaker at EliteForsk-konferencen "Elite Research Conference" in Copenhagen, which was attended by government ministers, as well as senior science policy and research developers in Denmark. In acknowledgment of her many achievements, Discover Magazine recognized her in as one of the 50 most important women in science.

After being awarded her bachelor's degree in Mathematics in , Hau continued to study at the University of Aarhus for her master's degree in Physics which was awarded two years later. For her doctoral studies in quantum theory Hau worked on ideas similar to those involved in fibre optic cables carrying light, but her work involved strings of atoms in a silicon crystal carrying electrons.