Hi! Thank you for visiting my website.

My name is Minho Kwon. I am a postdoc in the group of Sebastian Will at Columbia University. We study quantum physics of atoms and lights. Particular system of interest is a programmable atomic tweezer array, where single atoms are trapped with reconfigurable optical tweezers. In this versatile platform we are addressing key questions below.

Can atoms collectively interact in a way so their collective quantum state live longer than their intrinsic lifetime?

Supported by NSF QII-TAQS grant, in collaboration with Asenjo-Garcia group and Yu group

Can we develop and implement quantum algorithms with real-world relevance in materials science, quantum chemistry and optimization?

Supported by NSF Convergence Accelerator grant, in collaboration with Brookhaven National Lab, CUNY, Flatiron Institute, Atom Computing, QuEra, IBM and Bloomberg. Press release.

Before I join Will Lab, I was in the group of Mark Saffman at University of Wisconsin-Madison. As a postdoc I contributed to Cesium atomic qubit array experiment, after finishing my Ph.D in Rubidium Rydberg super-atom project in the same group.

News

|DAMOP presentations, June, 2021

We report updates on our project in DAMOP 2021. Here is a short video clip for the poster presentation. I'm also giving a talk about our Strontium 2D-MOT! Please check out.

|Video clip, Apr 9th, 2021

Aaron Holman, a Ph.D student in our project, briefly talks about how atoms can be used to solve some real world problems. Take a look!

|Strontium 2D MOT, Sep. 28th, 2020

Atoms are great. Laser cooled atoms are even better. We saw the first signature of laser cooled Strontium in our chamber.

|First signal of Strontium, Sep. 1st, 2020

We observed the very first fluorescence from our home-built Strontium atom source only 2 month after the lab reopening.

|Started a new position at Columbia University, Mar. 9th, 2020

In the group of Sebastian Will, we are setting up Strontium tweezer (namely TweeSr project) experiments to explore how collective effects can be used to extend quantum coherence of atoms. This work is supported by NSF grant #1936359.

|Talk @ MCAW 2019, Nov. 2nd, 2019

Gave a talk at the Midwest Cold Atom Workshop (MCAW) 2019 at Northwestern University.

|14 W @ 770 nm SHG paper, Sep. 3rd, 2019

Our work on high power SHG has been posted on arXiv:1909.00106. We use an LBO crystal with an enhancement cavity to achieve high conversion efficiency.

Update Nov. 11th: Accepted to Optics Letters

Update Jan. 6th: Published, Opt. Lett. 45, 339-342 (2020)

|Rydberg gate paper, Aug. 19th, 2019

Trent and Mark posted our work on two-qubit Rydberg gates in a 2-dim atomic array on arXiv:1908.06103. Complementary work from Harvard is on PRL 123,170503.

Update Nov. 8th: Accepted to PRL

Update Dec. 4th: Published, PRL 123, 230501

|Started working as a post-doc at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. May 2019

Joined the Atomic Qubit Array(AQuA) project.

|Dr. Kwon. Apr. 2019

Successfully defended my Ph.D thesis!