Wright Lab research represented at DAMOP conference

A number of Wright Lab researchers attended and presented their research at the 57th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (DAMOP) from June 1-5, 2026 in Providence, RI.

Wright Lab associate professor David Moore was an invited speaker, presenting “Mechanical quantum sensors for dark matter and neutrinos,” as well as an author on two other talk presentations from his group: 

• “Quantum-limited impulse sensing with optically-levitated nanoparticles,” presented by graduate student Jacqueline Baeza-Rubio 

• “Force and acceleration sensing with optically levitated microparticles,” presented by postdoctoral associate Lucas Darroch. 

The authors contributing to these two presentations—all in the Moore group—were: Moore; postdoctoral associates Darroch; Clarke Hardy, Aaron Markowitz, and Thomas Penny (now a postdoctoral researcher at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden); and graduate students Baeza-Rubio, Joaquin Fernandez Odell, Cecily Lowe, Siddhant Mehrotra, Benjamin Siegel (Ph.D. ‘26, now a postdoctoral associate at Atominstitut, TU Wein), Yu-Han Tseng, Jiaxiang Wang (Ph.D. ‘25, now a postdoctoral scholar at UCLA), and Molly Watts. 

Baeza-Rubio said, “Since this was my first DAMOP conference, I wasn’t expecting the conference to be so vast. Coming from a particle physics background, I was surprised by how broad the field is. The talks covered an incredible range of topics, many of which were new to me. It was a little overwhelming at first, but it quickly became exciting to explore so many different areas of AMO physics.”

 
Baeza-Rubio continued, “I presented our group’s recent work on detecting individual gas collisions with a levitated nanoparticle, and recieved lots of thoughtful questions and discussions following my talk. Those conversations gave me a chance to learn about new ideas and connect with researchers working on problems I hadn’t encountered before. I left with a much broader perspective on AMO physics and a lot of ideas to think about. It was a fantastic first DAMOP, and I’m excited to come back in the future.”

The group of Wright Lab professor Jack Harris presented a talk and two posters. The authors included Harris; research scientist Yogesh Patil; and graduate students Igor Brandão, Benjamin Capinski, Chitres Guria (Ph.D. ‘26, now a postdoctoral associate at MIT), Yinchen Hao, Theophilus Human, and Erin McGee.   

• “Levitated Superfluid Helium Drops for Optomechanics” (talk, presented by Human) 

• “Levitated Superfluid Helium Drops as Unclamped Optomechanical Cavities” (poster, presented by Capinski) 

• “Levitated Optomechanics with Spheres of Superfluid Helium” (poster, presented by McGee) 
  

Human said, “The DAMOP conference was a great opportunity to network with scientists and learn about the broader work within the AMO community. Between the invited speakers, contributed talks, and poster sessions, there was no shortage of exciting physics. It was great seeing old colleagues and meeting new potential collaborators.”

Members of Wright Lab assistant professor Charles Brown’s group presented two posters.

• “Dynamic Phase Control of a Quasiperiodic Optical Lattice” (presented by Yale Physics graduate student Andrew Neely)
  • This poster’s authors—all from the Brown group— included Brown; Yale Physics postdoctoral fellow Cedric Wilson; and Yale Physics graduate students Ryan Everly, Neely, and Raffaella Zanetti. 
• “Designing a Multimode Cavity for a Degenerate Cavity QED Apparatus“(presented by Yale Physics graduate student Siddharth Mukherjee)
  • This poster’s authors were Brown, Mukherjee, and Ningyu Wang, a graduate student from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.