Ph.D. Thesis - Physics

Acknowledgments
What a long, strange trip it’s been.
I’d first like to thank my advisor, Prof. Isaac Chuang. Ike has certainly taught me most
of what I can claim to know about doing research. Working here was an intense but re-
warding experience, in part because Ike grants his students a large amount of independence,
which affords one the opportunity to lead a research project, from design, construction, and
theory, all the way to writing up the results. This gave me a chance to do my own work,
including making my own mistakes, and in the process I learned a great deal. Ike also
has high standards regarding the communication of scientific information, and I greatly
appreciate the training I’ve received in writing and speaking about physics.
Thanks are also due to Profs. Wolfgang Ketterle and Leonid Levitov for sitting on my
thesis committee, and giving good suggestions and feedback before and after the writing of
this thesis. I enjoyed my semi-annual advising sessions with Wolfgang, especially once I was
taking 8.THG every single semester, and we could chat about science instead of coursework.
Before coming to MIT, I had the privilege of learning from several excellent teachers.
I’d like, most especially, to thank David French and Jeffrey Radloff, who got me started in
chemistry and physics as a high school student. It was they who inspired me to study these
subjects in college, and thus they have had a huge influence on the direction of my life. At
Ohio Northern, I benefitted from many excellent teachers. I would most particularly like to
thank my undergraduate research advisor, Prof. Jeff Gray, without whose encouragement
and instruction I would not have gone on to MIT.
I arrived at MIT the same day as Ken Brown, who immediately became my collaborator,
and very shortly thereafter my good friend as well. A good part of the credit for helping me
get up to speed here at MIT is due to Ken’s patient instruction. He is also responsible for
some great parties, and for introducing me to some excellent new music. I’d also like to thank
Matthias Steffen for taking the time to show Ken and me how to run the NMR machine.
Further instruction in the lab and good conversation outside of it came from Andrew Houck,
with whom I had the pleasure of rooming for a while. The first two undergraduates that I
worked with at MIT, Waseem Bakr and Susanna Thon, were excellent students who made
coming to lab more fun.
In due course, the days of NMR gave way to the days of ion traps, and I acquired
a new team of coworkers and friends. Jarek Labaziewicz and Dave Leibrandt joined the
group and they and I, together with Ken, built the first atomic ion traps in the lab. Their
technical skills and work ethic continue to impress me, but more impressive than this is
the fact that they’re somehow also awesome guys to hang out with. New projects brought
new undergraduate collaborators, and it was a pleasure to work on laser stabilization with
Christalee Bieber, PCB traps with Phil Richerme, and lattice ion traps with Ziliang (Carter)
Lin. Carter, even though things were a bit rough with me being several thousand kilometers
away for part of the time, I hope it was a good learning experience for you. I thank you,
5