Atomic, molecular and optical physics lies at the intersection of quantum mechanics and electromagnetic theory, providing the fundamental framework for our understanding of matter and light.

An international research team led by the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI has measured the radius of the nucleus of muonic helium-3 with unprecedented precision. The results are an important stress test ...

Particle and nuclear physics evokes evokes images of huge accelerators probing the extremes of matter. But in this round-up ...

Using ultracold atoms and laser light, researchers recreated the behavior of a Josephson junction—an essential component of ...

In March 2018, researchers launched what looks like a white, cooler-sized fridge to the International Space Station. That heavy box houses a $100 million facility known as the Cold Atom Laboratory, ...

Professor Daniel Blumenthal's lab develops chip-scale components that can bring the power and precision of quantum science outside of the tightly controlled environment of the lab. (Santa Barbara, ...

If an atomic physicist like Nathan Lundblad could slip the surly bonds of Earth’s gravitational pull, what kind of experiment would he dream up? About a decade ago, that very question was posed to ...

For nearly 50 years, physicists have dreamed of the secrets they could unlock by raising the energy state of an atom's nucleus using a laser. The achievement would allow today's atomic clocks to be ...

While many Earth-based experiments have been run to try to detect dark matter, the mysterious substance remains elusive. Now physicists have proposed a new experiment that would try to find signals by ...

Physicists are learning to treat light not as an untouchable beam that simply passes through matter, but as something that ...

A new experiment involving a network of entangled atomic clocks could finally help us test how quantum mechanics fits with general relativity. Quantum mechanics is our best understanding of the ...