Rate My Professor Lucile Sanchez

Dr. Lucile Sanchez is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Physics at the University of Otago, affiliated with the Atomic Physics Laboratory led by Associate Professor Mikkel F. Andersen and the Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies. Her research focuses on experimental atomic physics, particularly the generation of quantum entanglement through atomic collisions and the development of trapping techniques for highly magnetic atoms.

In the preprint 'Spin-entanglement of an atomic pair through coupling to their thermal motion' (arXiv:2602.09327, submitted February 10, 2026), co-authored with Poramaporn Ruksasakchai, Marvin Weyland, Mikkel F. Andersen, Scott Parkins, and Stuart S. Szigeti, the team examines the spin dynamics of two alkali atoms confined in an optical tweezer. Spin-changing collisions couple the atoms' spin states to their relative motion in a thermal state where k_B T greatly exceeds the spin-state energies. Observations show that an initially unentangled spin state evolves into an entangled state, counter to the usual decoherence from hot environments. This entanglement could improve measurement precision beyond the standard quantum limit, suggesting applications in robust quantum technologies.

Sanchez is also a co-author on 'Simple Magneto-Optical and Magnetic Traps for Dysprosium' (arXiv:2602.09403, submitted February 10, 2026), with Liam Domett-Potts, Charlotte Hayton, Oscar Stone, Nuttida Kaewart, Piyawat Chatchaichompu, Narupon Chattrapiban, Nithiwadee Thaicharoen, and Mikkel F. Andersen. They describe a magneto-optical trap (MOT) capturing dysprosium atoms from a thermal beam using a single diode-laser system and a quadrupole magnetic field for both MOT operation and subsequent magnetic confinement of dark-state atoms. The MOT loads in 26 ms, the magnetic trap in 410 ms, yielding 1.14 × 10^5 trapped atoms at 28 μK—below the Doppler limit—enabling studies of strong dipolar interactions.

At the 52nd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (DAMOP21), Sanchez presented 'Investigating thermally robust spin entanglement of an atomic ⁸⁵Rb pair in an optical tweezer.' The work details population dynamics and spin correlations from spin-changing collisions of thermal ⁸⁵Rb atoms in microtraps, probed via Raman transitions to assess entanglement under varied trap depths, bias fields, and collision durations. She has further presented at the 24th Australian Institute of Physics Congress (2022) and delivered a talk on spin entanglement of hot atoms in an optical tweezer at the Heidelberg Center for Quantum Dynamics.