Monroe, Christopher
Joint Quantum Institute
Quantum Technology Center
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Christopher Monroe is an quantum physicist who specializes in the isolation of individual atoms for applications in quantum information science. After graduating from MIT, Monroe earned his Ph.D. in Physics in 1992 from the University of Colorado, under Carl Wieman and Eric Cornell, where he paved the way toward the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation. From 1992-2000 he was a postdoc then staff physicist at NIST, in the group of David Wineland. With Wineland, Monroe led the team that demonstrated the first quantum logic gate in 1995, and exploited the use of trapped atoms for the first controllable qubit demonstrations. In 2000, Monroe became Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Michigan, where he pioneered the use of single photons to couple quantum information between atoms and also demonstrated the first electromagnetic atom trap integrated on a semiconductor chip. From 2006-2007 was the Director of the National Science Foundation Ultrafast Optics Center at the University of Michigan. In 2007 he became the Bice Zorn Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland and a Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute. In 2008, Monroe's group succeeded in producing quantum entanglement between two widely separated atoms and for the first time teleported quantum information between matter separated by a large distance. Since 2009 his group has investigated the use of ultrafast laser pulses for speedy quantum entanglement operations, pioneered the use of trapped ions for quantum simulations of many-body models related to quantum magnetism, and has proposed and made the first steps toward a scalable, reconfigurable, and modular quantum computer. Monroe is a UMD Distinguished University Professor.