Patrick Boyle [Physics major, Class of 2015]: I'm involved with Dr. Bayram's research group, and I got involved with her because I came into Miami knowing that I wanted to do physics, particularly the optical physics.

Dr. Burcin Bayram [Associate Professor of Physics]: Our objective is to measure amount of energy transfer in rotationally inelastic collisions in the molecular systems using lasers as tools.

Patrick Boyle: I talked to her and she said, "Do you want to see my lab?" and I said, "Of course!" There were lasers and a lot of other cool things going on, so I decided to stay.

Jacob McFarland [Physics major, Class of 2017]: I saw the word 'quantum' and I thought that that sounded really cool — this word, 'quantum'. And then I set up an appointment to be in the lab, I came in, it looked — everything looked awesome, exactly as I had imagined a laboratory would look like, and now I'm here.

Dr. Burcin Bayram: Undergraduate students have a lot of opportunities to, first of all, gaining hands-on experience, learning optics, electronics, data acquisition, making lasers, using lasers as tools to excite molecules and atoms and understand the physics behind the devices they use.

Patrick Boyle: Coming in as a freshman, I really had to learn like everything quickly to try to keep up with other students in the lab, so I was doing all kinds of things, from building vacuum chambers to aligning lasers, making dyes. So really, I had — it just gave me a really strong base in optical physics, and it also taught me to work well with other people because you have to really work together to get projects done in the lab.

Jacob McFarland: I was helped in the beginning a lot by my professor and by the graduate students but eventually, since they have their own things to do, they let me go and work on my own, and I think that I learned a lot from that.

Dr. Burcin Bayram: Basically, these lasers allow us to resolve, in a time scale, one of a trillionth of a second. We first send an ultra short-pulse laser to the molecular system, and this manipulates the internal properties of the molecule.

Jacob McFarland: I have learned how to manipulate lasers and how to work optics a lot. I plan on going into an optics related field, so all the optics stuff that I have learned so far will help me in the future.

Dr. Burcin Bayram: They present the research at national and regional conferences.

Patrick Boyle: One of the biggest highlights of my research project thus far is definitely my experience at DAMOP, which is a conference held yearly, the Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics. The upper-level physics that they were talking about was just astonishing to me, like the depth of knowledge and like what all the options there are in the field of physics.

Jacob McFarland: I really want to conduct my own research and really, in order to do that, you have to become a professor and teach at a college, and so my plans for right after graduation would be graduate school.

Patrick Boyle: After graduation, I plan on going to graduate school, probably for physics. I would like to do energy or plasma physics or possibly going somewhere into the conservation field.

Jacob McFarland: It's a very complicated topic, I didn't really get it at first. But I think that when I presented this it really - it really made it all click in my head.

[July 2014]