17 Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
(617)495-2872 phone
(617)495-0416 fax
In 1884, a new physics laboratory opened
at Harvard, the first of its kind in the Nation. It was
based on the revolutionary idea that "the department
of physics in a University must embrace both teaching
and investigation" (John Trowbridge, 1877).
From those pioneering days and throughout the Department's long and illustrious history, its faculty and students have been engaged in groundbreaking research and standard-setting instruction, contributing importantly to Harvard's reputation as one of the premier institutions of higher learning in the world. Among Harvard's 43 Nobel laureates, 10 are or were physics faculty members. Today, the latest generation of Harvard physicists continues to bring new insights into the exploration of fundamental problems involving physics at all length scales, and to provide outstanding and innovative educational opportunities to the many talented men and women who enroll in Harvard's flexible undergraduate and graduate programs.
From those pioneering days and throughout the Department's long and illustrious history, its faculty and students have been engaged in groundbreaking research and standard-setting instruction, contributing importantly to Harvard's reputation as one of the premier institutions of higher learning in the world. Among Harvard's 43 Nobel laureates, 10 are or were physics faculty members. Today, the latest generation of Harvard physicists continues to bring new insights into the exploration of fundamental problems involving physics at all length scales, and to provide outstanding and innovative educational opportunities to the many talented men and women who enroll in Harvard's flexible undergraduate and graduate programs.
Department News and Updates
| Structures of Self-Assembled Clusters |
| The Morris Loeb Lecturer in Physics: Matthew P.A. Fisher, Caltech. |
Colloquium: "Quantum
Crystals, Quantum Choreography and Quantum Computing" (3/1/10) Lecture I: "Exotic Spin Liquids in Weak Mott Insulators" (3-2-10) Lecture II: "Critical Quantum Fluids with d-wave Pair Correlations" (3/4/10) |
| Prof. Lene Hau been named a 2010 National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow by the U.S. Department of Defense. |
National
Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowship program
provides grants to top-tier researchers from U.S. universities
to conduct unclassified, basic research that may transform
DoD's capabilities in the long term. |
| The department welcomes a new Director
of Administration, Ms. Anne Trubia! |
| Prof. Lene Hau has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) |
"... for
distinguished contributions to the field of interactions
between atoms and light, especially for the achievement
of 'slow light' in dilute cold atomic gases." |
| Lawrence Golub Fellowship in the Physical Sciences |
The Lawrence
Golub Fellowship is a newly established prize postdoctoral
fellowship designed to attract and support outstanding
postdoctoral researchers across the physical sciences.
We are soliciting applications for the inaugural class
of Lawrence Golub Fellows through the Department of Physics
at Harvard University. We are seeking recent PhD recipients
with a demonstrated record of success who will take full
advantage of the Department's rich intellectual climate
to undertake at Harvard a research program of their choosing.
Both experimental and theoretical physicists are invited
to apply. Experimentalists should identify an existing
group within the Department with whom they intend to
work. Please submit (as a single PDF file) a statement
of research interests, a CV, and a record of publications
to golub_fellow[at]physics.harvard.edu. Also please arrange
for three confidential letters of recommendation to be
sent to the same address. The applicant's name should
appear in the subject line of all email submissions.
The deadline for applications is December 15, 2009. The
normal duration of the Lawrence Golub Fellow appointment
is two years, with a potential extension to a third year,
at an annual salary of $60,000. In addition, Lawrence
Golub Fellows receive an annual allocation of $5,000
for research and travel expenses. Applicants to other
Harvard Physics postdoctoral positions will automatically
be considered for the Lawrence Golub Fellowship. Harvard
University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity
employer. We encourage applications from women and minorities. |
| A quantum gas microscope for detecting single atoms in a Hubbard-regime optical lattice... |
Prof. Markus
Greiner, grad students Waseem Bakr, Jonathon Gillen
and Amy Peng, and post doc Simon Foelling published
a letter in Nature describing a quantum gas
'microscope' realizing a system in which atoms of a
macroscopic ensemble are detected individually and
a complete set of degrees of freedom for each of them
is determined through preparation and measurement.
By implementing a high-resolution optical imaging system,
single atoms are detected with near-unity fidelity
on individual sites of a Hubbard-regime optical lattice. Nature 462,
74-77 (5 Nov. 2009) | doi:10.1038/nature08482. See
also the Crimson article, "Physicists
Create Microscope". |
For
more news items, go to News
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For
recent faculty publications, go to Publications
page
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page.