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Assistant Professor Christian Sanner received his education at Heidelberg University in Germany. His research in atomic physics took him to MIT, PTB (Germany’s national metrology institute), and JILA. From 2017 to 2021, he was a Feodor Lynen Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and in 2020, he was awarded the Helmholtz Prize for extraordinary achievements in precision measurement. In 2022, he joined the physics faculty at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. |
Research program summary:
The research in my group is located at the intersection between three frontiers in experimental atomic physics: Optical precision spectroscopy, quantum simulation, and light-matter interfacing. Our experimental platform is a system of laser-cooled ytterbium ions which are optically interrogated on a highly forbidden electric octupole transition. We are developing novel quantum sensors for low-energy tests of fundamental physics and we want to explore new regimes of collective atom-photon coupling.
Selected recent publications:
G. Sorci, J. Foo, D. Leibfried, C. Sanner, and I. Pikovski.
Quantum Signatures of Proper Time in Optical Ion Clocks
Physical Review Letters 136, 163602 (2026)
Z. Zhou, S. C. Carrasco, C. Sanner, V. S. Malinovsky, and R. Folman.
Geometric phase amplification in a clock interferometer for enhanced metrology
Science Advances 11, eadr6893 (2025)
R. B. Hutson, W. R. Milner, L. Yan, J. Ye, and C. Sanner.
Observation of millihertz-level cooperative Lamb shifts in an optical atomic clock
Science 383, 384–387 (2024)
C. Sanner, L. Sonderhouse, R. B. Hutson, L. Yan, W. R. Milner, and J. Ye.
Pauli blocking of atom-light scattering
Science 374, 979 (2021)
A. Cidrim, A. Pineiro Orioli, C. Sanner, R. B. Hutson, J. Ye, R. Bachelard, and A. M. Rey.
Dipole-dipole frequency shifts in multilevel atoms
Physical Review Letters 127, 013401 (2021)
R. Lange, N. Huntemann, J. M. Rahm, C. Sanner, H. Shao, B. Lipphardt, C. Tamm, S. Weyers, E. Peik.
Improved limits for violations of local position invariance from atomic clock comparisons
Physical Review Letters 126, 011102 (2021)
L. Sonderhouse, C. Sanner, R. B. Hutson, A. Goban, T. Bilitewski, L. Yan, W. R. Milner, A. M. Rey, J. Ye.
Thermodynamics of a deeply degenerate SU(N)-symmetric Fermi gas
Nature Physics 16, 1216 (2020)
R. B. Hutson, A. Goban, G. E. Marti, L. Sonderhouse, C. Sanner, J. Ye.
Engineering Quantum States of Matter for Atomic Clocks in Shallow Optical Lattices
Physical Review Letters 123, 123401 (2019)
C. Sanner, N. Huntemann, R. Lange, C. Tamm, E. Peik, M. S. Safronova, S. G. Porsev.
Optical clock comparison for Lorentz symmetry testing
Nature 567, 204-208 (2019)
M. S. Safronova, S. G. Porsev, C. Sanner, J. Ye.
Two Clock Transitions in Neutral Yb for the Highest Sensitivity to Variations of the Fine Structure Constant
Physical Review Letters 120, 173001 (2018)
C. Sanner, N. Huntemann, R. Lange, C. Tamm, E. Peik.
Autobalanced Ramsey Spectroscopy
Physical Review Letters 120, 053602 (2018)
N. Huntemann, C. Sanner, B. Lipphardt, C. Tamm, and E. Peik.
Single-Ion Atomic Clock with 3e-18 Systematic Uncertainty
Physical Review Letters 116, 063001 (2016)
