The Saam Research Group, recently transplanted to WSU, has secured $422K of funding for three years from the AMO-E program of the Physics Division of the National Science Foundation.  The grant period starts on August 1st, 2017. The award is part of the Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI) program at NSF. We are partnering with Polarean, Inc. of Durham, North Carolina to address several problems in spin-exchange optical pumping (SEOP) of 129Xe. Most notably, we will be doing a direct comparison of rubidium to cesium for use in SEOP polarization of 129Xe. For more information, check out the Public Abstract.

Prof. Brian Saam is chairing the Conference on Polarization in Noble Gases (PiNG 2017) to be held in Park City, Utah October 8-13th, 2017. The conference is held every 3 years and attracts 100-150 participants from all over the world. More information can be found at the conference website is http://www.physics.utah.edu/ping .

I am very pleased to announce that I have accepted Dean Daryll DeWald’s offer to become professor and chair in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, effective February 1st, 2017. I will be relocating from my current position at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and also building a new research laboratory at WSU in experimental atomic physics. I am very excited about this opportunity and look forward to serving the faculty, students, and staff of this great department!