Citizenship: USA

 

Education

University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California

Ph.D. in Physics, 2006. Major field of study: Experimental atomic physics, precision measurements. Advisor: Dr. Harvey Gould, LBNL.

M.A. in Physics, 1999.

B.A. in Physics and Mathematics, 1997. Highest distinction in general scholarship.

 

College of Marin, Kentfield, California

A.A. in Mathematics and A.A in Natural Science, 1994.

 

Awards and Honors

Post-Doctoral

NRC/NIST Postdoctoral Research Associateship, 2006.

 

Graduate

      Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor award, Spring 2006.

NASA Graduate Student Fellowship, 2001-2004.

NSF Graduate Student Fellowship, 1998-2001.

Physics Department Fellowship, 1997-1998.

 

Undergraduate

Dorthea Klumpke Roberts Prize in recognition of exceptional scholarship in mathematics, 1997; McDonald, J. #1 Scholarship for 1996-7; Irwin P. Diamond Outstanding Scholar Award, 1994; DeBorba Family Memorial Scholarship, 1994; Engineering/Physical Sciences Scholarship, 1994.

 

Research Experience

Post-doctoral Research, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, July 2006 to current.

·         Modeling, developing, and microfabricating surface ion traps for quantum computing applications.   Our new designs will greatly extend the multizone trapping and ion transport capabilities.

 

Doctoral Research, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Aug 1997 to June 2006.

·         Dissertation: Measuring the electron electric-dipole-moment using a laser cooled and launched cesium fountain. I was responsible for designing, assembling, and testing the majority of the equipment from the in-vacuum assemblies to the data acquisition electronics.

·         Precision measurement of the cesium ground-state dipole polarizability. Our measurement is the most precise ground state polarizability measurement outside of the noble gasses. We improved upon the previous measurement by a factor of 14.  With theoretical help, we derived lifetimes for the D1 and D2 transitions and for the C6 dispersion coefficient with uncertainties that are comparable to other measurements. 

·         Focusing and phase rotation of neutral cesium beams using static and pulsed electric fields. Our first paper on this subject is a seminal paper for the generation of cold molecules with pulsed electric fields.  Our work was described in a review article in Nature [JM Doyle and B Friedrich, "Molecules are cool," Nature 401, 749 (1999)].

·         Atomic/soft x-ray collision studies at the Advanced Light Source in the group led by Dr. Ali Belkacem.

 

Undergraduate Research with Dr. Harvey Gould, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, May 1995 to May 1997.

·         Developed a compact, high-efficiency cycling-oven for producing beams of neutral francium atoms.  The final design was used for the francium laser trapping experiment in collaboration with Dr. Carl Wieman’s group at JILA.

 

Undergraduate Research with Dr. J. M. Nitschke, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Aug 1994 to Dec 1994.

·         Tested a helium cooling system for high power spallation targets. Also developed a finite element code for the numerical analysis of various designs. When the group was disbanded after the death of the principle investigator, I wrote the closing experimental paper under the guidance of postdoctoral fellow Dr. Mark Stoyer.

 

Teaching experience

Graduate Student Instructor, UC Berkeley, Jan to May 2006. Received Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor award for Spring 2006.

·         Physics 8A, Introductory Physics.

·         Physics C21/Letters and Sciences C70W, Physics and Music. This is the first semester for this course after a long hiatus. In addition to working with the other TAs to prepare and deliver the discussion section, I create demonstrations, animations, and applets for the lectures.

 

Select research skills

·         Microfabrication.

·         Shielding and nulling magnetic fields to a few microgauss.

·         High electric fields (100kV/cm).

·         Ultra-high vacuum systems.

·         Laser trapping and cooling and Zacharias fountains.

·         Cavity tuned diode lasers.

·         Optical layouts and alignment.

·         Soft X-ray light sources (Advanced Light Source).

·         Photomultiplier tubes, microchannel plates, and scintillators.

·         Unsealed radioactive sources (including francium sources milked from thorium decay).

·         Data acquisition design and programming (digital/analog electronics, NIMBIN, CAMAC).

·         Programming languages: Labview, Igor Pro, C/C++, Fortran, Java, Python, shell scripting.

·         Mechanical design: AutoCAD and Inventor.

·         Theoretical analysis and modeling.

·         Patience needed for precision measurements.

 

References on request

 

 

Publications

 

Note: I have published under both: Jason M. Amini and Jason A. Maddi

 

Inner-shell ionization of potassium atoms ionized by a femtosecond laser, M. P. Hertlein, H. Adaniya,  J. Amini; C. Bressler, B. Feinberg, M. Kaiser, N. Neumann, M. H. Prior, A.  Belkacem, Phys. Rev. A 73, 062715 (2006).

 

Demonstration of an electron electric dipole moment experiment using electric-field quantization in a cesium cold atom fountain, Jason M. Amini, Charles T. Munger Jr., and Harvey Gould, arXiv:physics/0602011 (2006).

 

Focusing a fountain of neutral cesium atoms with an electrostatic lens triplet, J.G. Kalnins, Jason M. Amini, and Harvey Gould, Phys. Rev. A 72, 043406 (2005).

 

Electron correlation during photoionization and relaxation of potassium and argon after K -shell photoexcitation, Marcus P. Hertlein, Hidehito Adaniya, Kyra Cole, Benedict Feinberg, Jason Maddi, Michael H. Prior, Ralf Schriel, and Ali Belkacem, Phys. Rev. A 71, 022702 (2005).

 

High precision measurement of the static dipole polarizability of cesium, Jason M. Amini and Harvey Gould, Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 153001 (2003).

 

Slowing and cooling molecules and neutral atoms by time-varying electric-field gradients, Jason A. Maddi, Tim P. Dinneen, and Harvey Gould, Phys. Rev. A 60, 3882 (1999). Note: This paper has received over 20 journal citations in the Phys. Rev. series alone and has been described in detail in Nature [JM Doyle and B Friedrich, “Molecules are cool,” Nature 401, 749 (1999)].

 

Efficient collection of 221Fr into a vapor cell magneto-optical trap, Z.-T. Lu, K. L. Corwin, K. R. Vogel, C.E. Wieman, JILA, Univ. Colorado, Boulder; T. P. Dinneen, J. Maddi, and Harvey Gould, LBNL, Berkeley, CA,  Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 994 (1997).

 

High power target measurements and finite element calculations for ISL targets, J.A. Maddi, M.A. Stoyer, L.F. Archambault, J.J. Ayers, and J.M. Nitschke,  NIMA 397, 209 (1997).

 

 

Selected abstracts and presentations

Atomic fountain measurements of multiple quantum transitions in cesium, Jason Amini, Harvey Gould, and Charles Munger, abstract for the annual meeting of the Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics of the Am. Phys. Soc., Lincoln, Nebraska, May 17-21, 2005.

 

Measurement of cesium 6P3/2 and 6S1/2 static dipole polarizabilities in a cold atom fountain, Jason Amini and Harvey Gould, abstract for the annual meeting of the Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics of the Am. Phys. Soc., Boulder, Colorado, May 20- May 24, 2003.

 

Slowing and cooling molecules and neutral atoms by time-varying electric-field gradients, J. A. Maddi, T.P. Dinneen, and H. Gould, abstract for the Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference, San Francisco, CA, 7-12 May, 2000 (QWELS-2000 Technical Digest p139).

 

A concentrated radioactive beam source for atom cooling and trapping, J. Maddi, T. Dinneen, A. Ghiorso, and H. Gould, abstract for the annual meeting of the Division of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics of the Am. Phys. Soc., Ann Arbor, MI, 15-18 May, 1996. Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 41, 1076 (1996).