I am a particle and particle accelerator physicist. Throughout my career, I have worked on innovative high energy particle colliders, exotic light sources, free electron lasers and “ultra-fast” sciences. Recently, I have turned my attention to Quantum Science and Technology and working closely with the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science, helped establish a DOE Quantum Science program in the US in 2017. For my full profile, please check my wiki-pages above.
I was born in India and grew up in the beautiful eastern Himalayan hill town of Darjeeling. Following B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from St Xavier’s College (Calcutta University, India) and Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (India) respectively, I completed my Ph.D. (Physics) from UC Berkeley in 1982 and did my post-doctoral research at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland (1982-1984). I spent 1984-2001 at LBNL/UC as senior scientist, 2001-2007 at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility as Associate Laboratory Director, 2007-2014 as Inaugural Director and Sir John Cockcroft Chair of Physics at the Cockcroft Institute (UK) and 2014-2021 as Distinguished Scientist at Fermilab (USA) and President's Professor for Research, Scholarship and Artistry, Northern Illinois University (USA). Currently, I am an Adjunct Professor of Photon Science at Stanford University, a Guest Senior Scientist and Faculty Affiliate at LBNL and Distinguished Scientist Emeritus at Fermilab (USA) and Emeritus President's Professor, Northern Illinois University (USA). I am excited that starting Spring 2023, I will be joining UC Berkeley as Lecturer of Physics allowing me opportunity to interact with bright young minds.
I am a Fellow of the APS, AAAS (US), IoP (UK), Royal Society for Arts (UK), and a corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (UK).
I continue to use my name at birth (Swapan Chattopadhyay) for all my academic scholarly work, but use Swapan Chaterji as my legal naturalized name.
Selected Publications:
1. Experimental demonstration of optical stochastic cooling, J. Jarvis et al., Nature volume 608, pages287–292 (2022)
2. AEDGE: Atomic Experiment for Dark Matter and Gravity Exploration in Space, Yousef Abou El-Neaj et al., EPJ Quantum Technology volume 7, Article number: 6 (2020)
3. Matter-wave Atomic Gradiometer Interferometric Sensor (MAGIS-100), Mahiro Abe et al., 2021, Quantum Sci.Technol. 6 044003
4. Fermilab @50, Joe D. Lykken and Swapan Chattopadhyay ed., Book published by World Scientific Ltd. (2016)
5. Alight a beam and beaming light: A theme with variations, S. Chattopadhyay, Physics of Plasmas 5, 2081 (1998);
6. X-Ray Based Sub-pico-second Electron Bunch Characterization Using 90° Thomson Scattering, W. P. Leemans et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 4182 – Published 11 November 1996
7. Femtosecond X-0ray Pulses at 0.4 Angstroms Generated by 90-degree Thomson Scattering: A Tool for Probing the Structural Dynamics of Materials, R. W. Schoenlein et al., SCIENCE 11 Oct 1996 Vol 274, Issue 5285 pp. 236-239
8. Generation of Femtosecond Pulses of Synchrotron Radiation, R. W. Schoenlein et al., SCIENCE 24 Mar 2000 Vol 287, Issue 5461 pp. 2237-2240