James Martin

James obtained his PhD from the University of Waterloo in 1998 under the supervision of J. W. Hepburn (now at UBC). His thesis was titled: "Electric-Field Induced Dissociation of Molecules in Rydberg-Like Highly Vibrationally Excited Ion-Pair States". This work explored the analogy between the motion of two bound oppositely charged atomic ions moving within an excited molecule (an ion-pair state) and a highly excited electron circling an atomic ion (a Rydberg state). In particular, in this work it was proposed and demonstrated (for the first time) that ion-pair states could be dissociated using very weak electric fields. After completing his thesis, James moved to Long Island, New York to work at Brookhaven National Laboratory for L. F. DiMauro on the generation of intense short pulse infrared using high intensity lasers. While there he studied high-harmonic generation using short-pulse mid-infrared. In August 1999 he moved to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia to study Rydberg atoms in T. F. Gallagher's group. While there he worked on the stabilization of predissociating molecular Rydberg states using microwave and radio-frequency fields and the dipole-dipole interaction between cold Rydberg atoms (obtained from excitation of laser cooled atoms). In the Fall of 2000 he returned to the University of Waterloo to set up a laboratory to study basic atomic, molecular and optical physics. At the present time, his group is constructing a laser cooling and trapping apparatus suitable for investigating a wide variety of phenomena associated with cold Rydberg atoms.

Research Interests: Rydberg states, laser cooling of atoms and molecules, dipole-dipole interaction between Rydberg atoms and its applications in quantum information processing.