Skip to main content Skip to navigation
Saam Laboratory Website Research

Our research group is broadly engaged in experimental atomic and condensed-matter physics, especially including spin physics and magnetic resonance. General areas of interest include spin-polarized alkali-metal vapors and noble gases (so-called hyperpolarized noble gases) and their many applications, many-body spin physics and chaos in condensed-phase spin systems, and alkali-metal and noble-gas magnetometry. We employ lasers of various kinds, light spectroscopy, NMR, and optically detected EPR.

We expect to get the lab going at WSU by the start of Summer 2017. If you’re interested in our work, please contact Prof. Saam (brian.saam@wsu.edu)!

Project areas of current interest:

The atomic and molecular interactions responsible for spin-exchange optical pumping (SEOP) of noble gases, including:

  • Optically detected EPR of alkali-metals (e.g., rubidium, cesium) for magnetometry and polarimetry of hyperpolarized noble gases.
  • Optical pumping of Cs vs. Rb for spin-exchange optical pumping of 129Xe: Cs spin-destruction rates; Cs-129Xe spin-exchange rates and efficiencies.
  • Anomalous relaxation mechanisms in 129Xe SEOP: effects of alkali-metal clustering.
  • Intrinsic and extrinsic (i.e., wall) nuclear spin relaxation of 129Xe.
  • Design and fabrication of alkali-metal vapor cells for SEOP
  • High-volume production of highly polarized 129Xe; flow-through 129Xe polarizer

Two-level systems in the strong-drive regime:

  • Optically detected EPR spectroscopy of 129Xe Rabi oscillations in real time
  • Spectroscopy of dressed nuclear spin states.

Many-body physics and chaos-like behavior in a spin lattice:

  • NMR (longitudinal and transverse relaxation) of 129Xe and 131Xe in a solid xenon lattice.
  • Late-time behavior of 129Xe transverse magnetization decays in solid xenon.