Harvard University Department of Physics

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.

Department News and Updates

Structures of Self-Assembled Clusters
Prof. Vinothan Manoharan, Research Associate Guangnan Meng and colleagues from SEAS published a report in Science on experimental measurements of the structures and free energies of colloidal clusters in which the particles act as hard spheres with short-range attractions: G. Meng, N. Arkus, M.P. Brenner, V.N. Manoharan, "The Free-Energy Landscape of Clusters of Attractive Hard Spheres", Science (29 Jan. 2010): v. 327: no. 5965, pp. 560 - 563 | DOI: 10.1126/science.1181263
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".

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