Professor Michael Köhl

Professor
Head of Atomic, Mesoscopic and Optical Physics group

Group: Atomic, Mesoscopic and Optical Physics

Address:
Room 834 Rutherford Bulding,
Cavendish Laboratory,
J J Thomson Avenue,
Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1223 337479
Email: mk540 "at" cam.ac.uk

Group Secretary / Administrator / Personal Assistant:
Pam Hadder
Tel: +44 (0) 1223 766298
Fax: +44 (0) 1223 761640
Email: pjh65 "at" cam.ac.uk

Biography:

Michael Köhl studied physics at the University of Heidelberg, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Frankfurt. He received a PhD from the University of Munich in 2001 working under the supervision of Prof. T.W. Hänsch. From 2001 to 2006 he was research assistant at ETH Zürich where he obtained a Habilitation in 2006. From 2007 to 2011 he held a University Readership in the Department of Physics and was promoted to a Professorship in 2011. He was awarded the 2012 Thomson Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics "for his pioneering experimental work in Bose-Einstein condensates and cold Fermi gases."

Homepage.

Research Interests:

Trapped ultracold atoms are at the centre of our research. We investigate correlation phenomena of cold bosonic and fermionic atoms with tunable interactions. In particular, trapped in optical lattices, quantum degenerate gases offer a fascinating possibility to realise experimentally a close link between atomic physics and condensed matter physics. This opens up the prospect of unravelling long-standing problems in condensed matter physics in a completely new approach. Quantum engineering of complex many-body systems including the coupling of cold atomic gases to external quantum systems may form the basis for advanced future hybrid devices with a wide range of applications, e.g. in quantum information processing.
Research Group - Atomic, Mesoscopic and Optical Physics.

Selected Publications:

F. Brennecke, T. Donner, S. Ritter, T. Bourdel, M. Köhl, T. Esslinger: "Cavity QED with a Bose-Einstein condensate". Nature 450, 268 (2007).

T. Donner, S. Ritter, T. Bourdel, A. Öttl, M. Köhl, T. Esslinger: "Critical behaviour of a trapped interacting Bose gas". Science 315, 1556 (2007).

M. Köhl, H. Moritz, T. Stöferle, K. Günter, T. Esslinger: "Fermionic Atoms in a Three-Dimensional Optical Lattice: Observing Fermi Surfaces, Dynamics and Interactions". Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 080403 (2005).

T. Stöferle, H. Moritz, C. Schori, M. Köhl, T. Esslinger: "Transition from a strongly interacting 1D superfluid to a Mott insulator". Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 130403 (2004).

M. Köhl, T. W. Hänsch, T. Esslinger: "Measuring the temporal coherence of an atom laser beam". Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 160404 (2001).

C. Raman, M. Köhl, R. Onofrio, D. S. Durfee, C. E. Kuklewicz, Z. Hadzibabic, W. Ketterle: "Evidence for a Critical Velocity in a Bose-Einstein Condensed Gas". Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 2502 (1999).