Professor of Experimental Physics PhD 2008, California Institute of Technology
Tracy Northup’s research uses optical cavities and trapped ions as tools to explore quantum-mechanical interactions between light and matter, with applications for quantum networks, sensors, and quantum simulations. Trapped ions are well-suited for local quantum computing, but for future quantum networks, photons — rather than ions — are ideal information carriers over long distances. Trapping ions inside of optical resonators allows us to map quantum information coherently between ions and photons, harnessing the advantages of both systems. Her research also focuses on quantum optomechanics with levitated dielectric nanospheres, in which quantum control is extended to the motion of macroscopic objects. Here, an ion in a cavity will provide a nonlinear element for quantum optomechanics experiments, enabling preparation of non-Gaussian states
