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About

In recent years ultracold atomic gases have proven to be a powerful and versatile tool for studying a wide variety of physics.

Our group currently has two experiments, the Sodium atom circuits experiment and the ultracold Strontium experiment. Both experiments are located at the Joint Quantum Institute located on the UMD campus and use ultracold atomic gases to study many-body physics. The atom circuits experiment is currently focused on studying superfluidity and analogs of both superconducting electronics and cosmological physics, whereas the strontium experiment is focused on engineering and studying novel condensed matter systems.

Group Lead

Photo of Gretchen Campbell

Gretchen Campbell

Associate Vice President for Quantum Research and Education

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Research Publications

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Research

  • view of a strontium MOT through a vacuum chamber

    Ultracold Strontium

    Learn More about Ultracold Strontium
  • density plot of a ring BEC

    Atom Circuits

    Learn More about Atom Circuits

News

  • Four squares in a row with the top half blue and bottom half yellow. In the leftmost the interface is smooth. The next interface is two smooth curves. The next interface is two mushroom cloud shapes. The final has no clear interface and shows random swirls and islands of yellow in the blue.

    When Superfluids Collide, Physicists Find a Mix of Old and New

    November 18, 2025

    Superfluids are notable for their unique properties and behaviors arising from the quantum interactions of the particles that make them up. Despite their quantum quirks, superfluids sometimes still behave in mundane ways. A new experiment captured images of two superfluids coming together and revealed that despite their quantum nature, they can still behave in ways that resemble the ripples and mushroom clouds seen in normal fluids.

  • University of Maryland Appoints JQI Fellow to Lead Quantum Research and Education

    July 14, 2025

    JQI Fellow Gretchen Campbell has been appointed to newly created Associate Vice President Role that will oversee UMD’s expanding quantum enterprise.

  • A man in a blue t-shirt stands on a balcony with trees in the background.

    Leaning into Lidar

    September 16, 2024

    What Swarnav Banik’s does might just be the future of transportation. Since 2022, he’s been working on sensing technology for the next generation of autonomous vehicles. In his work, Banik develops next-generation sensors that use lidar—light detection and ranging—technology to help autonomous vehicles “see” objects on the road ahead and safely avoid them. He first worked as a senior photonics engineer at Aurora Innovation, a company that’s developing self-driving systems for semitrucks and other commercial vehicles; now he’s at Aeva, a Silicon Valley firm developing sensing and perception tools for driverless cars and industrial automation.

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