William Stwalley

Professor Emeritus

Department of Physics

Education

• Ph.D., Physical Chemistry, Harvard University, 1969
• B.S., Chemistry, California Institute of Technology, 1964

Research Interests

The cooling and trapping of neutral particles using lasers (the 1997 and 2001 Nobel Prizes in Physics) has blossomed into one of the most intellectually compelling fields of science. Many scientifically fascinating phenomena arise as the wavelike nature of atoms and molecules becomes important as the particles are cooled to milliKelvin temperatures. As the particles are further cooled to microKelvin and nanoKelvin temperatures, their DeBroglie wavelengths approach the average interparticle spacing in the gas, and “quantum degeneracy” sets in, including Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC), atom lasers and BCS pairing of fermions.

Honors

• Leeds and Northrup Foundation Fellow, Harvard University, 1964-65
• National Science Foundation Fellow, Harvard University, 1965-68
• Alfred P. Sloan Fellow, 1972-74
• Fellow, Japan Society for Promotion of Science, 1982
• Fellow, American Physical Society, 1982-present
• Fellow, Optical Society of America, 1988-present
• Fellow, Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, 1994-present
• Fellow, Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1995-present
• William F. Meggers Award of the Optical Society of America, 1998
• Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, University of Connecticut, 2002-present
• Fellow, American Association for Advancement of Science, 2005-present
• Connecticut Medal of Science, 2005