Karl van Bibber Group Awarded 5-Year U.S. Department of Energy Grant

The group of professor Karl van Bibber has been awarded a $1.1M grant for five years from the Department of Energy, for the proposal "Innovative metamaterials and quantum amplifiers for very high mass dark matter axion searches".  This work supports research and development of novel microwave resonators of metallic or dielectric microstructures whose plasma frequency can be engineered and tuned. The development of such devices would open up the possibility of experiments searching for the dark matter of the universe in the form of a very light hypothetical particle, the axion which can resonantly convert to a weak radio signal in a strong magnetic field. Berkeley's partners in the proposal, a group at the University of Colorado led by Konrad Lehnert will also receive $1.1M for R&D on innovative quantum amplifiers and quantum acceleration schemes at very high frequencies.