Fall 2022 Colloquia

Environmental Health & Safety Department
Colorado School of Mines
MANDATORY safety training for faculty, staff, postdocs, grad students, and undergraduates working in laboratories.

RANDY BARTELS
Colorado State University, Electrical & Computer Engineering

Abstract: Optical imaging is a powerful tool that has found widespread use in vast areas of science and industry. Fluorescent imaging is an indispensable component of many biological investigations, owing to the ability to track specific molecules. Coherent nonlinear optical imaging, based on inelastic nonlinear light scattering driven by intense laser fields, provides contrast mechanisms that provide information not accessible by other optical imaging methods. Nonlinear optical imaging is particularly useful in complex environments that suffer from significant optical scattering and absorption where conventional camera-based methods fail. Optical imaging with single pixel detection enables imaging detailed structures in specimens by scanning a point focus of light in three dimensions. I will discuss recent advances in multiplexed imaging where dynamically structured illumination light is able to extract significantly more spectroscopic and spatial information from a specimen. Application of dynamic light structuring to classical super resolution microscopy, hyperspectral imaging, and Raman microscopy, a new form of coherent nonlinear tomographic imaging will be reviewed. The talk will focus on the exploitation of quantum correlations for improved super resolution imaging and computational fusion imaging.

Bio: Randy A. Bartels is a professor of electrical and computer engineering and the School of Biomedical Engineering at Colorado State University (CSU). Prof. Bartels has been awarded the Adolph Lomb Medal from the Optical Society of America, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, a Sloan Research Fellowship in Physics, an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, a Beckman Young Investigator Award, an IEEE-LEOS (now Photonics Society) Young Investigator Award, a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, and a Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering (PECASE). His research involves the development of novel spectroscopy and microscopy techniques and ultrafast fiber lasers for use in these applications. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and of the American Physical Society (APS). He serves on the editorial board of Applied Physics Letters, Photonics and Frontiers Optics and Photonics Journal and is an editor for Optics Communications and for Science Advances.

Abstract: Sustainability applied to networking is about treating professional support and assistance like a resource and creating more of it than you take. This workshop introduces how to use sustainable networking to create mutually beneficial professional relationships and to set and accomplish career goals. Through individual and group activities, participants will come away with personalized goals and a practical action plan for how to incorporate sustainable networking into their professional lives.

Bio: Christina C. C. Willis is a laser scientist, author, and public speaker with a passion for public policy. She served a year in the United States Senate as the 2019-2020 OSA / SPIE Arthur H. Guenther Congressional Fellow and currently works as a senior analyst at the Boulder-based quantum technology company ColdQuanta. In her free time she teaches yoga and volunteers as a firefighter. You can download her book Sustainable Networking for Scientists and Engineers for free from SPIE Press. Find her on twitter @willischristina or learn more at Sustainable Networking.

Abstract: Sustainability applied to networking is about treating professional support and assistance like a resource and creating more of it than you take. This workshop introduces how to use sustainable networking to create mutually beneficial professional relationships and to set and accomplish career goals. Through individual and group activities, participants will come away with personalized goals and a practical action plan for how to incorporate sustainable networking into their professional lives. Bio: Christina C. C. Willis is a laser scientist, author, and public speaker with a passion for public policy. She served a year in the United States Senate as the 2019-2020 OSA / SPIE Arthur H. Guenther Congressional Fellow and currently works as a senior analyst at the Boulder-based quantum technology company ColdQuanta. In her free time she teaches yoga and volunteers as a firefighter. You can download her book Sustainable Networking for Scientists and Engineers for free from SPIE Press. Find her on twitter @willischristina or learn more at Sustainable Networking.

ROBERT MCLEOD
University of Colorado @ Boulder, Electrical, Computer & Energy Engineering

Abstract: Additive manufacturing of polymers is now an established technique in industries from athletic wear to orthodontics. However, these methods are limited in further societal impact because each part requires hours of labor from trained technicians working in chemical handling facilities. A recently introduced technique, volumetric additive manufacturing (VAM), has the potential to dramatically change this landscape. VAM projects hundreds of images into a container of prepolymer resin, printing the 3D part in one step that takes ~10 seconds. The closed volume enables automation of chemical post-processing and enables entirely new classes of materials to be printed. Realizing these advantages will require simultaneous advancements in the three foundations of VAM: the optical architecture (1) that projects images found through numerical inverse optimization (2) into a volume of photo-responsive material (3). I will present work our group is doing in each of these three coupled areas. Specifically, I will show a new class of VAM optical architecture that can print into arbitrarily large, flat packages instead of the current small cylindrical vials. I will describe advances in computational techniques to calculate VAM image sets for new architectures and novel materials. Finally, I will show new classes of materials that can be printed by VAM to achieve printed part properties unlike any available from existing polymer AM methods.

JOHN GAMBLE
IonQ

Abstract: Quantum computing has the potential to revolutionize the way we solve many problems, ranging from analyzing chemical reactions to cryptography. However, building these machines in practice is an incredibly challenging engineering exercise, and many organizations are competing in the race toward practical quantum computers. In this talk, I’ll introduce the core operating concepts of a quantum computer and show how we realize them in ion trap hardware. I will then describe how we measure quantum computer performance and what we have done to boost it at IonQ, focusing on both software error mitigation techniques as well as our latest hardware designs.

Bio: John Gamble is Director, System Performance Optimization at IonQ, where he and his team work to model, characterize, and optimize quantum computers. Before joining IonQ, John carried out research and development on topological quantum computing at Microsoft and spin quantum computing at Sandia National Laboratories, first as a Harry S. Truman Fellow and later as technical staff. John received his PhD in physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. John’s technical work centers on deploying large-scale computer-aided engineering tools to understand and improve qubits, which draws heavily on techniques from condensed matter physics, electrical engineering, quantum information science, machine learning, and quantum chemistry. Throughout his career, he has worked on a broad cross-section of quantum engineering topics: quantum algorithms, semiconductor quantum dot qubits, semiconductor impurity qubits, topological qubits, trapped ion qubits, quantum characterization, verification, and validation, and the optimization of quantum systems.

This lecture will be over Zoom. https://mines.zoom.us/j/188885471

1. 4:00 to 4:09:  David Goldberger, “High-dimensional, multiplexed, single-shot ptychography for spatiotemporal ultrafast pulse-beam characterization”
2. 4:12 to 4:21: Nicholas Materise, “High Throughput Measurements of III-V Semiconductor Materials Stack of 2DEG-Based Tunable Couplers”
3. 4:24 to 4:33: Daniel Scarbrough, “Cascaded Spatial Frequency Modulation Imaging for Dispersion Optimized Multiphoton Microscopy”
4. 4:36 to 4:45: Taylor Wagner, “Electrical Initialization and Readout of Triplet Spin States”

BRIAN SIMONDS
NIST

Abstract: Continuous-wave high-power lasers have evolved from bulky, inefficient tools with only niche applications to reliable photon appliances that have rapidly been adopted by industry. Accordingly, the metrology of these laser systems has also advanced. The Sources and Detectors group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) develops and maintains traceable, primary standards for high-power lasers from 1 watt to over 100 kilowatts. In this talk, I will give an overview of high-power laser metrology at NIST as well as how this metrology is being specifically applied to laser manufacturing. Historically, high-power laser detectors have been thermal. As an alternative, we have recently developed radiation pressure detection schemes. A radiation pressure-based sensor measures laser power by using a precision balance to measure the force imparted by laser light incident to a mirror. As light no longer needs to be absorbed, very large laser powers can be measured with a much smaller footprint detector and in significantly less time. This approach has led to the lowest uncertainty measurement of a 10-kW laser (0.26%) by using a multiple reflection approach known as High Amplification Laser-pressure Optic, or HALO. In addition to improving absolute laser power metrology, the influx of lasers in manufacturing for cutting, welding, and additive manufacturing has led to the development of application specific metrology techniques. Precision laser manufacturing like metal laser powder bed fusion additive manufacturing (LPBF-AM) necessitates tight processing windows and accurate knowledge of all process parameters, including laser power. For this reason, we are surveying a sample of commercial LPBF-AM systems across the United States to determine the accuracy with which they deliver laser power. This work is ongoing but has already shown that the discrepancy in laser power delivery is limited by the uncertainty of the laser power meter used for calibration, typically 4% to 5%. In addition to knowing the laser power delivered, process developers also want to know how much of this light energy is being absorbed by the material. We have developed an in situ, time-dependent approach for measuring laser power absorption. This technique has been applied to metal solids and powders and has been combined with other in operando techniques such as high-speed synchrotron X-ray imaging and inline coherent imaging to reveal underlying mechanisms affecting laser power absorption. Data from these experiments have recently been used for the NIST Additive Manufacturing Benchmark Challenge where simulation experts competed to blindly model our experimental results. Although some participants performed very well, the challenge results illustrated several areas for improvement from both modeler and experimentalist.

Bio: Brian is a physicist in the applied physics division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, CO. His expertise is in high-power laser metrology for absolute radiometry and industrial laser processes. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Illinois Wesleyan University and a PhD in applied physics from the Colorado School of Mines. Outside of work, Brian enjoys rock climbing, ski mountaineering, and just being outside.

NURIS FIGUEROA-MORALES
University of Colorado @ Boulder, Physics Department

Abstract: Advancements in medicine and environmental remediation require investigation into bacterial transport and accumulation in confined geometries with the presence of flow. By looking at the dynamics of Escherichia coli bacteria in narrow microfluidic channels, we identify a phenomenon of upstream “super-contamination” of bacteria that depends on the flow. Bacteria navigate upstream over macroscopic distances at an average speed of 1millimiter per minute. We believe the evolution of the concentration results from the downstream and upstream distances covered by bacteria as they swim along the solid boundaries of the microchannel. To prove our hypothesis, we develop unique experiments for long-distance scanning of the channel over macroscopic distances of a few millimeters. Our experimental findings can be rationalized through stochastic simulations incorporating the long tail of individual bacterial run time, as appose to the classically assumed Poisson distribution of average 1second runs. Our research provides insight into macroscopic transport processes in biological or soil networks and demonstrates that the run-and-tumble statistics determine macroscopic bacterial transport properties.

Bio: Nuris Figueroa is an Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her lab investigates the transport of microorganisms in complex environments, like viscoelastic and anisotropic liquids and complex porous geometries, using tools from microfluidics, quantitative video microscopy, and real time 3D tracking of bacteria and micro-particles. Her current interests focus on the dynamics of bacteria in the mucus of the respiratory, gastro-intestinal and reproductive tracts, as well as bacterial transport in relation with pollutants in soils. She holds Batchelor and Master’s degree in Physics from the University of Havana (Cuba), PhD in Physics from Sorbonne University (France), and postdoctoral experience in Biomedical Engineering at Penn State.

LINCOLN CARR
Colorado School of Mines, Physics Department

Abstract: Quantum physics was invented in the 1920s and has continued developing for over a century to create vital technologies we all use every day, such as lasers and magnetic resonance imaging.  Quantum physics is presently undergoing a fusion with current information technology to invent new modes of sensing and measurement such as GPS-independent navigation; new secure forms of communication including the structure of the future internet; and new concepts in computing with the potential for extreme speed-up on key computing tasks ranging from all-pervasive encryption protocols to radical new forms of quantum matter.  We call this fusion Quantum Information Science (QIS).  In this talk, I will first give simple explanations of what QIS is, how it works, and what present and near-future technologies it is generating.  Then I will review the six pillars of the US National Quantum Initiative with a special focus on the sixth pillar, international cooperation.  How can we use these powerful technologies, some of them with the potential to do great good or great harm, to enhance human well-being and create positive international relationships?  How does QIS fit into the bigger picture of critical and emerging technologies?  What lessons might we learn from building international cooperation in QIS that can be applied toward creating a positive playing field for science and technology writ large?  How do we balance, on the one hand, open science, support for the international scientific community, and research integrity; with, on the other hand, dual-use and research security concerns?  At the end of this talk I will discuss opportunities for Mines students to engage in science diplomacy.

Bio: Lincoln D. Carr received his B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Washington, Seattle. He is an IEEE Senior Member, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Kavli Fellow and a Jefferson Science Fellow of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, and a National Science Foundation Distinguished International Fellow. He is an Honors Faculty Fellow and Payne Institute for Public Policy Fellow at the Colorado School of Mines, where he is a Professor in the Quantum Engineering Program and the Physics Department, and a Graduate Faculty Advisor in the Applied Mathematics and Statistics Department. His research brings together complexity theory, quantum information science and engineering, education, condensed-matter physics, atomic, molecular, and optical physics, nonlinear dynamics, computational physics, and applied mathematics, pushing the frontiers of complexity theory in the quantum world. To date, he has mentored over 100 students in research, received over $10 million in grant funding and fellowships, and published over 150 articles and books with over 15,000 citations. He has taught for over 25 years in both the sciences and the humanities on topics ranging from quantum physics to poetry and philosophy.

In September 2022, Dr. Carr completed one year of service as a Foreign Affairs Officer in the Office of Science and Technology Cooperation (STC) in the US State Department. The mission of the STC is to promote and protect American scientific leadership and use science, technology, and innovation to advance American foreign policy interests. In this role, he worked on three cross-departmental and interagency global international portfolios: quantum information science and technology; critical and emerging technologies; and research security and integrity. He also worked regionally to support science and technology cooperation for the South and Central Asia region.

ORIT PELEG
Assistant Professor, University of Colorado @ Boulder, Department of Computer Science
BioFrontiers Institute
Meeting to be held on Zoom.

Abstract: Our world is full of living creatures that must share information to survive and reproduce. As humans, we easily forget how hard it is to communicate within natural environments. So how do organisms solve this challenge, using only natural resources? Ideas from computer science, physics and mathematics, such as energetic cost, compression, and detectability, define universal criteria that almost all communication systems must meet. We use insect swarms as a model system for identifying how organisms harness the dynamics of communication signals, perform spatiotemporal integration of these signals, and propagate those signals to neighboring organisms. In this talk I will focus on two types of communication in insect swarms: visual communication, in which fireflies communicate over long distances using light signals, and chemical communication, in which bees serve as signal amplifiers to propagate pheromone-based information about the queen’s location.

Meeting to be held on Zoom.

ORIT PELEG
Assistant Professor, University of Colorado @ Boulder, Department of Computer Science
BioFrontiers Institute
Meeting to be held on Zoom.

Abstract: Our world is full of living creatures that must share information to survive and reproduce. As humans, we easily forget how hard it is to communicate within natural environments. So how do organisms solve this challenge, using only natural resources? Ideas from computer science, physics and mathematics, such as energetic cost, compression, and detectability, define universal criteria that almost all communication systems must meet. We use insect swarms as a model system for identifying how organisms harness the dynamics of communication signals, perform spatiotemporal integration of these signals, and propagate those signals to neighboring organisms. In this talk I will focus on two types of communication in insect swarms: visual communication, in which fireflies communicate over long distances using light signals, and chemical communication, in which bees serve as signal amplifiers to propagate pheromone-based information about the queen’s location.

Meeting to be held on Zoom.