Taming, slowing and trapping atoms with light
Cold is quantum, Quantum is cool!
We shape quantum matter
Multicolored lasers for a variety of atoms
Keeping our eyes on the quantum world
Join our ultracool group!
High technology for great science
Taming, slowing and trapping atoms with light

Welcome to the website of the Ultracold Quantum Gases group at the European Laboratory for Nonlinear Spectroscopy (LENS), the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Florence (Italy) and the Institute of Optics of the Italian National Research Council (CNR - INO). In our labs we use lasers and magnetic fields to produce the lowest temperatures of the Universe, just a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero...

At these temperatures, atoms stop moving and we can control them for a variety of different fundamental studies and applications. We can force atoms to arrange according to a periodic structure and simulate the behavior of crystalline solids and new materials. We can use the atoms as ultra-high accurate sensors to probe forces with the power of quantum mechanics. We can study how quantum particles combine together under the action of strong interactions and how superfluidity develops. We can use these ultracold atoms to process information and develop new quantum technologies.

Dress warmly and... follow us for this ultracold journey!

LAST NEWS

Meet Our New PhD Students!

A new PhD course is starting, and with it comes a wave of new students joining our team.

An injection of fresh energy, curiosity, and ideas!

Welcome to Michael Stiven Caracas Núñez (BaLi), Èlia Solé Cardona (Dy), Alessandro Vanni (Yb Tweezers), and Alberto Terenzi (Li).

A new low-impedance RF antenna

Thanks to a fruitful collaboration with the electronic workshop of LENS, CNR-INO and INRiM, we have developed a new low-impedance and versatile RF antenna. The innovative design is tailored for cold atoms experiments, and we successfully tested its performance with ultracold lithium atoms. Our solution combines an optimized RF coil geometry with transmission-line impedance transformer, enabling large currents to flow through the coil while keeping electromagnetic interference with surrounding equipment negligible and maintaining wide optical access. Our versatile design may serve as a new standard for generating RF fields in cold atoms experiments.

F. Scazza et al.
A low-impedance radio-frequency circuit for fast spin manipulations in cold alkali atoms
Rev. Sci. Instrum. 96, 104713 (2025)

ERC Starting Grant goes to Alessio Ciamei!

Alessio Ciamei has received an ERC Starting Grant for his project COMPASS: "An ultracold Molecule Platform for fundamental Asymmetry Searches".

You can find the theoretical proposal behind COMPASS in his recent preprint written in collaboration with the group of Prof. M. Tomza (University of Warsaw): https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.16760.

Congratulations!

Positions are available at different levels. To learn more you can contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

 

Congratulations Stefano!

Congratulations to Stefano for obtaining his well-deserved PhD degree (cum laude!) with his thesis titled "Ultracold 6Li-53Cr mixtures: From resonantly interacting fermions to paramagnetic bosonic dimers"! 

And may the future bring you many more successful results. Daje!

Check out the thesis here.

Looking for a PhD? Join us!

We are looking for applicants who either hold or expect to obtain a Master’s degree in physics or a related field and have a strong interest in atomic physics, photonics, quantum optics, and quantum technology. Join our world-class research environment to explore quantum sciences with ultracold matter.

The new PhD call by the University of Florence is out! Contact us to devise together a PhD project to be carried out in our labs. There are two PhD programs available to join our labs: the doctoral programme in physics and astronomy and the international doctorate in atomic and molecular photonics.

Application deadline: June 16, 2025 at 12:00 PM (CEST / Central European Summer Time)

You can find further information here and on our Jobs Page.