People: Sebastian Hofferberth

Postdoctoral Fellow

Biography:

I studied Physics at the University of Marburg, Germany (2000-2002), the University of Eindhoven, Netherlands (2003), and the University of Heidelberg (2003-2007), where I attained my Diploma of Physics in 2004 in the group of Prof. Joerg Schmiedmayer. During this Diploma thesis I participated in the construction of a new Atomchip BEC experiment aiming towards the realization of a chip-based atom interferometer. For my PhD I stayed with the same project, continuing the work on atom interferometry. In 2005 we realized the first coherent splitting of a single BEC with an interferometer based on radio-frequency induced dressed state potentials. We then employed this interferometer to study the phase fluctuations in a weakly interaction one-dimensional Bose gas.
After finishing my PhD thesis in 2007, I joined the group of Prof. Mikhail Lukin at Harvard University as a Post Doc. Here, I work on trapping laser-cooled atoms inside the hollow core of a photonic crystal fiber. This novel approach, realized in collaboration with Prof. Vladan Vuletic from MIT, aims at realizing a nonlinear medium at the level of single or few photons in a cavity free setup. Over the last year, in a series of first experiments, we have demonstrated nonlinear responses of the system at the level of ~100 photons. Currently, we are investigating various methods of further reducing the number of photons required for nonlinear response of the medium, ideally down to single photons.

Publications
  1. M. Bajcsy, S. Hofferberth, T. Peyronel, M. Hafezi, A. Zibrov, V. Vuletic, M. Lukin, and V. Balic. Efficient All Optical Switching Using Slow Light Within a Hollow Fiber. Phys. Rev. Lett., 102:203902, 2009.
  2. S. Hofferberth, E. Demler, I. Lesanovsky, T. Schumm, J. Schmiedmayer, A. Imambekov, and V. Gritsev. Full Distribution Functions of Quantum Noise in an Interacting Many-Body System. Nature Physics, 4:296, 2008.
  3. S. Hofferberth, E. Demler, I. Lesanovsky, T. Schumm, J. Schmiedmayer, A. Imambekov, and V. Gritsev. Probing Quantum and Thermal Noise in an Interacting Many-Body System.. Nature Science, 4:489-495, 2008.