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The 15th Public Joseph & Sophia Konopinski Memorial Lecture in Physics

William D. Phillips (1997 Nobel Laureate)
NIST

Almost Absolute Zero – the Story of Laser Cooling and Trapping

Contrary to intuition, we can cool down a gas by shining a laser on it. This lecture will describe how laser cooling works, and why it works better than anyone had expected it to. We can now cool a gas ot atoms to less than a millionth of a degree below absolute zero – the coldest temperatures in the universe. Atoms this cold exhibit weird and wonderful properties and are being used for such applications as super-accurate atomic clocks. Dr. Phillips shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to this field.

Tuesday, March 8, 2005
7:30 PM, Rawles Hall 100