Research

At Sandia, Benjamin worked on quantum-enhanced gravity and acceleration sensing using cold-atom matter-wave interferometry, with applications toward practical inertial guidance and navigation. The work focused on making atom interferometers small, fast, and sensitive, using a grating magneto-optical trap that runs at data rates up to 100 Hz.

Benjamin’s doctoral work in the ultracold quantum gases group explored quantum nonlinearities in two settings. In warm rubidium vapor inside a microwave cavity, he demonstrated coherent microwave-to-optical conversion that is tunable across a 550 MHz range of optical frequencies, a step toward linking microwave quantum devices to optical networks, and the same system led to a vector magnetometer. With ultracold Bose-Einstein condensates, he contributed to fast, low-noise quantum memory for single-photon-level light and developed GPU-accelerated simulations of spin-orbit coupled condensates.

As an undergraduate, Benjamin refurbished a discharge light source for the 30.4 nm helium emission line, recommissioned a vacuum-ultraviolet monochromator, and measured the extreme-ultraviolet reflectance of thin-film Y₂O₃ at the Advanced Light Source to extract its optical constants.