Christopher Seck Email & Phone Number

Knoxville, Tennessee Area

Technical lead of Oak Ridge National Lab’s (ORNL’s) first ion trapping apparatus. Oversees all aspects of ORNL’s ion trapping experimental efforts including control electronics, optics, dipole-transition lasers, optical-qubit gate laser, and laser modulator subsystems while planning, justifying, and managing project budget.Experimentally achieved many firsts at ORNL within the first 9 months of effort: 40Ca+ trapping, observation of spectroscopy and Rabi oscillations on the 40Ca+ optical qubit, performing single qubit gates with fidelity of >0.999, and performing two qubit gates with fidelity of >0.98. Achievements resulted in winning a laboratory-wide team award.Contributed ion-trap technical ideas and milestones for multiple whitepapers and the Quantum Science Center (QSC) proposal for the Department of Energy’s National Quantum Initiative (NQI) call, which was funded. Serves as PI for ion-trapping work under the QSC ($3.65M) targeting analog quantum simulation and cryogenic integrated electronics development in collaboration with Fermi National Accelerator Lab (FNAL).Leads a funded $1.6M internal project as PI to codesign an ultra-low vibration cryogenic 4 K ion trap apparatus leveraging ColdQuanta’s ion trap packaging and ultra-high vacuum (UHV) experience, ORNL’s cyrogenic and mechanical engineering expertise, and a Montana Instruments cryogenic station. Leads a $940k internal proposal as PI to provide an artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML)-optimized trapped ion quantum resource to serve as an HPC accelerator for natively quantum problems.

Greater Atlanta Area

Major contributor to GTRI’s quantum information research in trapped-ion systems. Worked extensively with both 40Ca+ and 88Sr+ optical qubits in multiple surface ion traps including the GTRI GenIIc, GTRI Gold, Honeywell BGA, and Sandia HOA-2. Key member of a team and leader of a subteam comprised of physicist and engineers tasked to meet challenging project milestones under taxing time constraints and contributed to the technical reporting of such in both writing and presentation.Contributed to GTRI’s optical transition dipole force (OTDF) 2-qubit entangling gate result that measured an infidelity of 6(3) x 10-4 without experimental error subtraction. Designed the optical-qubit gate laser optical layout and stabilization subsystems, multiple free-space optical control subsystems, common/standard experiment control sequences, and enhanced PC control of multiple devices.Led a team as PI to prepare a proposal for an DoD grant including technical volume and budget, which was funded. The project demonstrated individual ion addressing in a global qubit-laser beam, quantified the results via randomized benchmarking (RB), and characterized a 2Q gate via quantum process tomography (QPT) using the technique. Oversaw all aspects of project execution including solving technical challenges, fulfilling reporting requirements, and managing project budget. Presented the project to sponsors at several program reviews and in two peer-reviewed publications.Assembled multiple ultra-narrow-linewidth semiconductor and solid-state qubit-/clock-laser systems for high fidelity 1 and 2 qubit gates with estimated laser linewidths of ≲10 Hz.Designed, constructed, and optimized multiple experiment optical infrastructure subsystems including electro-, acousto-, and free-space optic assemblies using COTS components. Improved and optimized PC-control of experiments and standard experiment sequences. Assembled multiple new experiments and experimental infrastructure for sponsored projects.

Evanston, Illinois

Implemented quantum ground state cooling of a single atomic ion and trap system using Raman and coherent quantum manipulation techniques as a prerequisite for molecular quantum logic spectroscopy (mQLS).Demonstrated cooling of the internal degrees of freedom in trapped diatomic molecular ions to the ground state from room temperature resulting in multiple refereed publications.Integrated direct digital synthesizers (DDSs) and RF electronics to coherently drive multiple acousto-optic modulators (AOMs) for single-ion quantum measurements and QLS.Designed and built multiple digital and analog electronics systems including PID servo loops to actively stabilize apparatus conditions and enable full remote control of experiments.Led the development of external cavity diode laser (ECDL) systems including the design and fabrication of electronics and high-bandwidth frequency lock servo loops.Managed several undergraduate to graduate students to design, fabricate, and debug Libbrecht-Hall-based current drivers and analog temperature controllers for diode laser systems.Researched multiple molecular candidates by calculating molecular levels and transitions using LEVEL and rate-equation-simulating using Octave (MATLAB).

San Luis Obispo, California

Investigated organic solar cells under various fabrication parameters.Developed an optical system to correct a diode laser’s output beam profile.Constructed a custom bathymetric light detection and ranging (LIDAR) system.Led a group research effort investigating reversible self-assembly of latex microspheres via DNA hybridization.

Canoga Park, California

Doctor Of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Physics, 3.515

PhD candidate specializing in experimental broadband rotational optical cooling of molecules, motional ground state cooling of 138-Ba+.

Bachelor Of Science - Bs, Physics, 3.823

Activities and Societies: Chapter President, Society of Physics Students (SPS), 208-2009 Member, Society of Physics Students (SPS).