2024
April
Samm will start his graduate study in Scotland with an amazing physicist, Dr. Paul Griffin! So Happy for Samm!!!! Congrats again!
February
The proposal went in on time, and we had the first group meeting! Scholarship deadline is coming up everybody, brush your CV and Apply for some good scholarship! I am going to be still busy with the second deadline to meet, hopefully we resume the lab work soon!
January
Happy New Year everyone!!! (This picture was from Jan. 1st, in Korea!) We hope that everybody has a great start of the spring semester! Seniors' grad applications are mostly in, HP and JP are busy writing another proposal, this will be something fantastic for our students, fingers crossed!!!! We are also working on the exciting night event at Gateway Science museum with the host of NSPR Blue Dot, Dave Schlom! Stay tuned!
2023
November
We are very excited for the upcoming public lecture by Dr. Ian Spielman and his visit!!!
Please join us at Colusa B100 4pm, on Nov 9th!!!
Update on Dr. Spielman's public lecture: We had more than 120 attendees for the lecture! We even had to bring in extra chairs - thank you to those who helped!!! Of course, we went out for dinner and had to take Dr. Spielman to the Bear, ending an exciting day!
October
Evan, Blayne, Alex, and Jackson Joined the team this fall semester, (Jackson changed his major to Physics! ) Can't wait for the exciting journey with you all!
September
Some more party time! Dr. John Young, Dr. Josh Fishkin, and Afternoon Classics host Michael Fishkin joined us at the pub after the seminar one fine Friday!
The new NSF grant of $400,000 officially started as of September 15! We want to make a meaningful difference in science education with this funding! We are SO excited!!!!
August
Emeritus Professor John Young is making a gift of $25,000 to the research group! His generous donation is touching all of us so deeply, and this will contribute to a significant portion of equipment upgrades! Thank you so much, Prof. Young! We are all so grateful for your amazing contribution! And we welcome the new members of the group, Evan and Blayne! Well, they are not actually new - they have been working with HP before. (: Fall semester begins Aug. 21! Happy Fall Semester, everyone!!!
2023 Summer research is completed! Great job all! I can't wait to see our old crew members coming back in Fall 2023 soon. Have a safe trip home everyone!!!
July
We finished restoring all of the optical setup with the new laser systems!
Great work summer research crew members!!!
June
We finished restoring the repump line with the Vortex laser! Also, the new Toptica DL pro arrived and is seeded into the BoosTA. Now we have so much more power than ever! The trap line is almost restored, and we just need to nail down the locking again! Thank you so much for your hard work everyone and can't wait to have Anastasia join us for July!
2023 Summer Research begins! Thanks to Prof. Dwight Whitaker and a purchase of a new laser. We are upgrading our homebuilt laser systems! We are very excited for this new setup. After the first week, we already replaced the entire repump system and got the saturation signal back!
May
Time for a celebration for the amazing achievements of everybody and our hard work. Thank you everybody. The past two years were challenging, but I am thankful that everybody did their part so amazingly. Now with the commercial laser system, I can't wait to see more of the exciting journey!
Finally, we see the first evidence in making ultracold atoms!!! Great work everybody! We see some issues with our lasers, so we are moving forward in upgrading our system! What's next is to implement absorption imaging so that we can make denser and colder samples of atoms!
Esteban will take off to grad school, Justin to NIST, Sam to Germany, and Gabe and Michael to Sandia, so we will miss you guys. Learn a lot and come back with lots of new ideas, please! In the mean time, we will continue research at home with 5 new students!
April
Justin presented our work successfully at the APS March Meeting, and Gabe will give his first talk at APS DAMOP! Toni is designing the new supporting system for the chamber; Esteban successfully locked the injection laser to the master laser; Michael is making amazing progress with KiCad; The Justin/Samm duo made our magnetic field coil assembly ready to go; and Gabe also successfully expanded the beams and sent them into the chamber. Now we are all set to go!
We are welcoming the new member of the group, Ian Edwards is joining for the team! Welcome Ian!
March
Gabe was awarded the prestigious SULI fellowship at Sandia Lab!!!! Samm is heading to Germany for his summer internship, which is in collaboration with CERN (Yay!) Fingers crossed for Michael (another SULI) and Justin (NIST SURF). Can't wait to hear for more news coming in!
By the way, we got an espresso machine in the lab! Our efficiency and productivity hopefully goes straight up, right guys?!
Happy news update: Justin got accepted to NIST SURF!!!!! Michael Hart got accepted to another SULI, So proud all of you.
February
Things are moving along - the lab is being reorganized, the saturation set up has been updated, and the cooling system for the coils is under construction.
All so exciting!
Our youngest research group member, Gabe turned to 21! First beer on us of course!
Justin Craven got Arloe Anania-Murray Physics scholarship! Congrats!!!
January
Tik Tok filming! Thank you so much, Esteban, Michael, and Gabe!!! Also great news is starting to come in. Esteban and Farhan started to hear back about their graduate school admission. Congrats, guys!
Happy New Year everybody! Wishing everyone a healthy and wonderful year ahead!
Catherine Crichton visited Chico! She said that graduate student life at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is great. I am so proud of all of our students, who are doing a great job in graduate school all over the country!
2022
December
Our chiller for the magnetic field coils finally came in! What a relief! Farhan and Esteban are busy applying to graduate school, and we ended our busy semester with another photoshoot and filming the lab! Thank you, Michael and Justin!
We hope that everyone has a great break and safe travels. See you back in January!
November
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!! Michael, the new lab member came into work on a day off, so we went to splurge for lunch for fun! Way to go Michael!
Our paper got published! The paper is from a side project that Justin, Elliott, and Gabe have been working since last spring. I can't wait for the next paper to get published. You did a great job all!
October
Sam and Justin made a poster presentation and an oral presentation at the APS Far West Meeting in Honolulu, HI. They both did a fantastic job! Also we have two new students, Michael and Liam. Welcome to the team!
September
The Fall 2022 semester began! Esteban, Sam, and Yolie came back from Sandia National Laboratory and the National Air and Space Intelligence Center to rejoin the group! They brought back so much of passion for doing more research! They were praised by their PIs that they were the best students in 30 years! We are resuming a new semester of learning and research! Best of luck everyone. Let's make this a fun semester!
(Gabe, Elliott, and Andre are missing :( from the picture.)
August
2 sets of magnetic coils were installed to create the magnetic field gradient for the magneto-optical trap! We deeply appreciate the support and help from Dr. Spielman at NIST in the process!
The beginning of the fall semester is around the corner. Best of luck, everybody, for another amazing semester!
July
The chamber is baking! Without baking the chamber, we pumped down the chamber to 10^-7 Torr. Now we are baking the chamber at 250C to reach to 10^-10 Torr! While the chamber is baking, the crew is taking a break before the the nightshift!
June
Finally, we are putting the chamber together!! Justin, Gabe, Toni, and Elliott (in alphabetical order according to last name) put together the chamber on June 27, 2022. Our amazing students did a truly fantastic job. So thankful! What an exciting moment! Associate Dean Dr. Randy Miller came to cheer us on as well!
All the parts are put together and flushed with nitrogen. We are pumping down the system tomorrow, using the turbo pump and then the ion pump. Fingers crossed for a good, low pressure! (Special Thanks to Sam Smith for taking care of ordering all the parts before he left to Livermore Lab!!!)
Also, a paper got submitted as Justin being the first author. Stay tuned! Great work all!
May
The spring semester is ending nicely - Good luck on your final everyone!- , and summer research preparation is well under way. Justin, Gabriel, Elliott, Toni and Farhan will be putting the chamber together this summer!
April
Great news! Esteban Teran and Sam Smith each received a Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) award at Sandia Lab! Catherine and Will previously were awarded SULI fellowships at Livermore and Berkeley Laboratories. You guys are keeping the amazing tradition of this lab! So proud of you guys! Also, Catherine sent us news that she was awarded the very competitive NSF Graduate Fellowship! How amazing!
More news coming in! Yolie Reyes received a summer internship at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center! Congratulations Yolie!!! Also Dr. H. Pechkis received the 2022-2023 ESAT Award! Hooray!
March
Justin Craven and Esteban Teran participated in the 36th Annual Chico State Student Research Competition. Both of them did a wonderful job, and Justin Craven received honorable mention and 4th place! Congrats!
February
With the first group meeting kick started (first group photo in a long time!), Justin has some good progress with the coil design, and Sam also assembling the chamber in Solidworks! The turbo pump is on the way! Esteban and Justin are going to compete in the research competition! Best of luck!
January
Happy New Year everyone! We are starting the new year with the exciting news that Esteban and Farhan got the best presentation award from the UKC 2021 Symposium! So proud of you! Esteban, Farhan, and Sam are busy applying for external internships. The best luck to you all!
2021
December
Esteban and Farhan gave their first external CSU talk at a symposium - the UKC 2021 Symposium! They worked really hard on it, and did a fantastic job. After all, you might deserve a trip to Disney on the way back!
Gabriel and Justin added Physics as their major! So excited! Welcome to our Physics family! What happy news for the group! The fall semester has finally ended, and classes remained in person. Hopefully, we all had a fun ride.
November
We are all vaccinated and are working hard in the lab together! The new students are getting into work very quickly, and the senior students have been wonderful in sharing their knowledge! Now both the trap and repump lasers are locking well with great saturation singles! It has been so much fun working with you all, Farhan, Esteban, Sam, Gabe, Jusin, Yolie, and Andre!!! The next gathering will be a BBQ in the Pechkis backyard!
October
The ultracold atom lab got the Faculty-mentored Research & Creative Activities Program Award (HEERF Award)! Three students will get awarded $4800 each and will devote their time to research during Spring 2022! The three students are Justin Craven, Yolanda Reyes, and Gabriel Delich! Doubly great news, they joined the Physics Department! Welcome all on board!
Dr. J Pechkis also won a Course-Based Undergraduate Research & Creative Activities Program Award!
August
2021 Physics Summer Research Institute was successfully completed. We worked fully-masked all the time! Everyone worked so hard and restored most of the optical table. Students did a great seminar and poster presentation! Semester begins in-person in Physics department!!!
June
2021 Physics Summer Research Institute begins! Welcome Esteban, Farhan, Hunter, Michael, Miguel, Sam and Sarah! PSRI seminar is hosting Mr. Michael Doris (NIST), Dr. Susanne Yelin (Harvard), Dr. William Phillips (NIST), Dr. Jenny Strabley (Honeywell), and Dr. Eric Cornell (NIST)! What a fun summer it would be!
May
Dr. J. Pechkis got an offer for a tenure-track position! Congratulations, Dr. J. Pechkis! We are also resuming in-person summer research. We welcome Farhan, Esteban, Sarah, Miguel, and Hunter to our research team! This summer, we will also have Chico High students, Michael and Summer, in our project! Welcome all!
April
Dr. H. Pechkis got tenured and promoted! Her passion and purpose of being teacher is to make a difference in our students' lives. Each student has been an an inspiration for her.
March
March is a blooming season in Chico. More good news! Michael Doris got more offers, including from Yale University, Catherine got an offer from University of Colorado, Boulder, and John Stone got an offer from Colombia University! Congratulations to all! celebrate all of your hard work and passion!!
February
Much good news is flowing in! Our former alum Michael Doris is getting multiple offers for graduate schools with bountiful fellowships! Congratulations, Michael! We are SO proud of you! 
by Charlie Macksey
January
The 2021 Spring semester will be online again. Our lab will be also allowed a limited number of students. However, we are going to remain in high hopes that things will change soon. Happy New Year everyone, and we wish you all a healthy and amazing year!
2020
December
Everything moved into the NEW SCIENCE building, including the optical table!!! Our research space is beyond Beautiful! Unpacking and setting up the lab will be the project for the spring semester! And the Pechkis Team is busy writing up the papers...
October
Laboratory Packing Begins!
July- August
Lauren, John, and Michael have been working hard in research! Covid-19 can't even stop our passionate researchers! Also, Michael headed to Maryland, driving across the country, and now he's safely settled at NIST! Best of luck, Michael!
June
Lauren Gorman received the Adelante award for summer research! Congratulations, Lauren! Lauren also was admitted to graduate school at the University of Connecticut!
March
Dr. H. Pechkis was awarded an NSF Faculty Early Career Award! This is truly amazing news. We will be able to provide our students many research opportunities during the academic year and summer (and buy all that cool equipment that we need!). Thank you so much NSF! Here is an interview with Dr. Pechkis on the award!
Dr. H. Pechkis was awarded the CSU Outstanding Early Career Faculty Award! She is so grateful to her students and colleagues for nominating her for this wonderful award. They make her to become a better teacher everyday! Please check out the announcement here!
John Permann was looking to go to NIST for a 2020 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Award! However the program was cancelled due to COVID-19.
Sorry, John, but congrats to you on all of your hard work and accomplishments! We are so proud of you all!
February
Moving to the new Physical Sciences Building has been postponed to January 2021.
2019
November
The ultracold atom research group won the Best Poster Presentation at the APS Far West Section Conference! We are so proud of all of you. Great job! Congratulations!!
June - August
2019 Physics Summer Research Institute begins!
John Permann, Tom Garcia, Harmand Khinda, and Yoana Guzman are the recipients of this wonderful summer research fellowship! Let's have fun!
Update: The slave laser is constructed; the camera system for absorption imaging is configured; the optical layout for the MOT beams is designed; and the MOT coils were constructed by Michael Doris!
Our 2018 Physics Summer Research Institute recipients are shining bright!
Lauren Gorman got an REU program offer from the renowned AMO and Quantum Information Science experimental group at University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign.
Catherine Crichton got multiple offers, but she chose to go with Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.
Our famous Michael Doris is going to NIST once AGAIN for another 2019 SURF Award. Our students are SO amazing!
March
Yoana Guzman won the prestigious Lt. Robert Merton Rawlins Merit Award! This is the second time that our research group student won this amazing award, Congrats, Yoana!
February
Hooray! The Women In Physics group at CSU received the APS WiP Grant! April and H. Pechkis worked hard to get this grant. Now the WiP brunch is on us!
2018
November
Michael Doris won the Best Poster Presentation Award at the APS Far West Conference.
Congratulations, Michael! Great job all presenting your posters at APS Far West!
August
H. Pechkis and her colleagues at NIST publish "A Spinor Bose-Einstein-condensate phase-sensitive amplifier for SU(1,1) interferometry" in Physical Review A.
- Phys. Rev. A 98, 023620 – Published 16 August 2018
June - August
2018 Physics Summer Research Institute begins!
Catherine Crichton, Lauren Gorman, Sam Forsberg, John Stone, and Steve Shepperd are the recipients of this wonderful summer research fellowship! This is such an exciting time!
Update: The current and temperature controllers are up and running hard. The saturation signal obtained, and lasers are locked! Now we are going to construct the slave laser!
May
Michael Doris won the Floyd L English Natural Sciences Award! Congrats, Michael!
May
Our 2017 Physics Summer Research Institute recipients bring good news! Michael Doris got a 2018 NIST Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Award! Will Mixter won the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) Award! Congrats to both!
April
Nobel Laureate Dr. William Phillips visited CSU and presented a few inspirational days to our students and to our campus! Dr. Phillips gave two talks and spent his valuable time with us. Thank you, Dr. Phillips!
Dr. P. Arpin and Dr. H. Pechkis are awarded the "Lab Innovation with Technology Award"!
2017
October
Will Mixter received the prestigious Lt. Robert Merton Rawlins Merit Award!
He will get a $5000 fellowship. Congratulations again, Will!
September
Two Sets of diode lasers are constructed through 2017 PSRI and are running at the right wavelength! Guess what! We are moving into our own lab space finally!
June- August
2017 Physics Summer Research Institute begins!
This is the first Physics Summer Research Institute for team Pechkis! Recipients are Michael Doris, William Mixter, Carissa Leveille, Joseph Levin, and Jason Mickel.
May
Annual End of Semester BBQ in the Pechkis backyard! We work hard, eat hard, and play hard!
H. Pechkis received the Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity (RSCA) Award for 2017!
March
Dr. Spielman at NIST sent us surplus equipment! It's like Christmas in March!
We are so thankful for their generosity!
January
Team Pechkis starts research through Independent Study PHYS 499!
Logan, Nathan, Carissa, Will, Jason, Austin, welcome aboard!
2016
July
H. and J. Pechkis moved to California to join CSU in July 2016. It was one of those days during the heat wave, reaching to 110 F.