Publications

Papers, preprints, and what they contributed.

These publications form the backbone of my thesis work: high-survival lithium imaging, a unified cooling theory, and cesium quadrupole cooling/background-free imaging.

PRA 2025 · co-first

Narrow-Line Electric Quadrupole Cooling And Background-Free Imaging Of A Single Cs Atom With Spatially Structured Light

Karl N. Blodgett*, Saumitra S. Phatak*, Meng Raymond Chen, David Peana, Claire Pritts, Jonathan D. Hood

Demonstrates 685 nm quadrupole excitation of a single Cs atom in a tweezer using spatially structured light, enabling background-free 852 nm cascade imaging and narrow-line cooling.

PRA 2024 · theory

Generalized theory for optical cooling of a trapped atom with spin

Saumitra S. Phatak, Karl N. Blodgett, David Peana, Meng Raymond Chen, Jonathan D. Hood

Develops a master-equation framework that connects sideband, polarization-gradient, gray-molasses, Λ-GM, EIT-like, and Raman cooling mechanisms for bound atoms with spin.

PRL 2023

Imaging a 6Li Atom In An Optical Tweezer 2000 Times with Λ-Enhanced Gray Molasses

Karl N. Blodgett, David Peana, Saumitra S. Phatak, Lane M. Terry, Maria Paula Montes, Jonathan D. Hood

Reports high-fidelity fluorescence imaging of a single lithium atom in an optical tweezer, achieving 2000 consecutive images with 99.950% per-image survival.