Atomic, Molecular, Optical Science

AMOS encompasses the research in
atomic, molecular, and optical science
at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

AMOS Research Areas

AMOS is a center for quantum physics with atomic, molecular, and optical systems, at the Weizmann Institute of Science. The center includes 15 research groups and activities ranging across most contemporary topics in AMO physics - from atto-second pulses and intense lasers, through precision spectroscopy of ultracold atoms, molecules or ions, to quantum information and quantum optics. AMOS members hold faculty appointments in both the Physics and Chemistry Faculties at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

A wide range of interests and scientific excellence contribute to making AMOS one of Israel's leading research centers. AMOS scientists publish annually numerous scientific manuscripts in leading journals.

All Research Areas

News

  • December 2, 2025

    Optica

    Read More about: Optica
  • January 15, 2025

    2024 Tenne Family Prize

  • June 16, 2024

    Morris L. Levinson Prize in Physics

All News

Seminars

  • 03
    Feb 2026
    13:15

    AMOS Journal Club

    Aaron Liberman
    Tomas Levy

     

    LWFA with a Flying-Focus Wakefield  (Liberman) 

    Laser-wakefield accelerators (LWFAs) have demonstrated the ability to generate high-quality, monoenergetic electron beams. Yet, efforts to achieve higher electron energies are by electron dephasing and beam diffraction. One promising approach to mitigating these limitations is the use of structured light to control the on-axis propagation velocity within LWFAs. This method promises an improved balance of extended acceleration distances and strong accelerating gradients.

    In this talk, we report the first experimental observation of wakefields driven by such structured-light beams as well as the first experimental evidence of the mitigation of dephasing in electron acceleration. Spatiotemporally engineered laser pulses are focused using a specialized mirror to produce a quasi-Bessel beam, and the resulting wakefields are directly measured using femtosecond relativistic electron microscopy. We experimentally demonstrate control over the on-axis propagation velocity of the wakefield and follow its evolution throughout the focal region. We investigate how targeted spatiotemporal modifications affect both the wakefield structure and its propagation velocity. Finally, we present the first successful acceleration of electrons using these wakefields, demonstrating partial mitigation of dephasing.

    [1] C. Caizergues et al. “Phase-locked laser-wakefield electron acceleration,” Nat. Photonics. 14, 8 (2020)

    [2] J.P. Palastro et al. “Dephasingless laser wakefield acceleration,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 134802 (2020)

    [3] A. Liberman et al.,“Direct Observation of a Wakefield Generated with Structured Light,” Nat. Commun. 16, 10957 (2025)

    [4] A. Liberman et al.,“First Electron Acceleration in a Tunable-Velocity Laser Wakefield,” under review. (https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.21098)

    [5] A. Liberman et al.,“Probing Flying-Focus Wakefields,” under review. (https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.16950)

    [6] A. Liberman et al., “Use of spatiotemporal couplings and an axiparabola to control the velocity of peak intensity,” Opt. Lett. 49, 814-817 (2024)

     

    Photonic quantum gates and two-photon processes in Waveguide QED (Levy)

    The search for passive, deterministic conditional gates between photons remains a major objective within the quantum optics and Waveguide QED community. Many proposals have emerged using different quantum non-linear media such as Rydberg atoms, Kerr non-linearities or V-type emitters. We wanted to answer the question: can the simplest form of quantum non-linearity—a two-level emitter—be harnessed to construct a photonic conditional gate? The use of two-level emitters has posed challenges, as strong photon correlations usually come at the price of significant distortions in the wavepacket spectrum. I will present our approach to overcome these limitations through a novel architecture [1]. This design can be realized within a two-mode chiral Waveguide QED framework,

    such as the one resulting from two-level emitters coupled to a topological waveguide. I will also discuss a recent proposal designed for Circuit QED using transmon dimers non-locally coupled to a waveguide [2].

    [1] T. Levy-Yeyati, C. Vega, T. Ramos and A. Gonzalez-Tudela, PRX Quantum 6, 010342 (2025)

    [2] T. Levy-Yeyati, T. Ramos and A. González-Tudela, arXiv:2507.05377 (2025).

     

    Read more

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Publications

  • Optical Tweezer-Controlled Entanglement Gates with Trapped-Ion Qubits

    Schwerdt D., Peleg L., Dekel G., Rajagopal L., Matoki O., Gross A., Shapira Y., Akerman N. & Ozeri R. (2026) Physical Review Letters.
    We propose an entanglement protocol where ions illuminated by optical tweezers serve as control qubits. We experimentally demonstrate this proposal with a controlled Mölmer-Sörensen operation on a three-ion chain, analogous to the canonical Toffoli gate. Our demonstration features cases in which the control qubit was in one of its logical basis states, and not in their superposition, due to dephasing by tweezer beam intensity fluctuations. Finally, we discuss how our protocol generalizes to a broad class of unitary operations and larger qubit systems, enabling a single-pulse implementation of n-controlled unitaries.

  • Witnessing nonstationary and non-Markovian environments with a quantum sensor

    Rosenberg J. W., Kuffer M., Zohar I., Stöhr R., Denisenko A., Zwick A., Álvarez G. A. & Finkler A. (2026) Physical Review Applied.
    Quantum sensors offer exceptional sensitivity to nanoscale magnetic field fluctuations, where nonstationary effectssuch as spin diffusionand non-Markovian dynamics arising from coupling to few environmental degrees of freedom play critical roles. Because fully reconstructing the microscopic structure of realistic spin baths is often infeasible, a practical challenge is to identify the dynamical features that are actually encoded in the sensors decoherence signal. Here we demonstrate how quantum sensors can operationally characterize the statistical nature of environmental noise, distinguishing between stationary and nonstationary behaviors, as well as Markovian and non-Markovian dynamics. Using nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond as a platform, we develop a physical noise model that captures the essential dynamical features of realistic environments relevant to sensor observablesindependently of the microscopic bath details and provides analytical predictions for Ramsey decay across different regimes. These predictions are experimentally validated through controlled noise injection with tunable correlation properties. Our results showcase the capability of quantum sensors to isolate and identify key dynamical properties of complex environments, without requiring full microscopic bath reconstruction. This work clarifies the operational signatures of nonstationarity and non-Markovian behavior at the nanoscale and lays the foundation for strategies that mitigate decoherence while exploiting environmental dynamics for enhanced quantum sensing.