Dalziel Wilson Recipient of NSF CAREER Award

Dalziel Wilson, Assistant Professor, was awarded the NSF CAREER Award, for his proposal, "Torsional Quantum Optomechanics."  See the NSF Award Announcement. According to the NSF CAREER award website, it is among the "most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization." 

The project explores a new landscape in quantum optomechanics opened by the recent discovery of ultra-high-Q torsion nanoresonators in Wilson’s lab.  High-Q nanomechanical resonators are the building blocks of quantum optomechanics experiments, enabling the use of light to manipulate mechanical motion at the quantum limit. Goals of the proposal including establishing a new field of imaging-based quantum optomechanics and developing a new class of chip-scale gravimeters for applications ranging from dark matter searches to inertial navigation (discussed in the abstract). Additionally, Dal will oversee the creation of a new laboratory course for the QISE (Quantum Information Science & Engineering) Master's program.

An overview of the project was recently published in the American Physical Society's (APS), Physical Review X: Vol. 13, Iss. 1, "Nanoscale Torsional Dissipation Dilution for Quantum Experiments and Precision Measurement."

Dal said of his team's work and the award, “I’m particularly proud of how this project originated—not by design, but through a series of fortuitous mistakes in the lab, inspiring conversations with collaborators at NIST Gaithersburg, ASU, University of Delaware, and Texas A&M, and above all, my students, who took a leap of faith and poured all their energy into a side project in their 3^rd and 4^th years, without knowing where it would lead."

Congratulations to Dal and his brilliant team in the Quantum Optomechanics Lab!