We use laser-cooling and trapping of neutral atoms as the basis for a wide variety of applications for fundamental and practical problems. Our laboratory pioneered many of the key techniques used to create cold atomic gases, such as deceleration of atomic beams, atom trapping, sub-Doppler cooling, optical lattices, individually trapped single atoms, etc. Today we use ultra-cold atomic as a basis to study quantum information processing, quantum simulation, and quantum metrology. Our group is part of the Joint Quantum Institute and we have research on both the NIST-Gaithersburg and the University of Maryland-Colleg Park campuses. Our research benefits from strong collaborations with other experimentalists and theorists at NIST and the JQI, and internationally. A few examples of recent work are:

"Number-state reconstruction with a single single-photon avalanche detector"Banner, PR; Kurdak, D; Li, Yaxin; Migdal, A; Porto, JV;Rolston, SL; Porto, Opt. Quantum 2, 110 (2024)

"Enhancement of Rydberg Blockade via Microwave Dressing", Kurdak, D;  Banner, PR; Li, Yaxin; Muleady, S, Gorshkov, AV; Rolston, SL; Porto, JV;  Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 123404 (2025).

"Accurate Determination of Hubble Attenuation and Amplification in Expanding and Contracting Cold-Atom Universes", Banik, S., Galan, M., Gutierrez, Sosa-Martinez, H., Anderson, M. J., Eckel, S., Spielman, I. B. and Campbell, G. K.  Phys. Rev. Lett.,128 090401, (2022),

"On-demand indistinguishable single photons from an efficient and pure source based on a Rydberg ensemble,"  Ornelas-Huerta,DP, Craddock, AN, Goldschmidt, EA, Hachtel, AJ,  Wang, Y,  Bienias, P,  Gorshkov, AV, Rolston, SL and Porto, JV, Optica 7, 813 (2020)