Deborah S. Jin

Deborah Jin
Born	Deborah Shiu-lan Jin (1968-11-15) 15 November 1968 Santa Clara County, California, U.S.
Died	15 September 2016(2016-09-15) (aged 47) Boulder, Colorado, U.S.
Occupation	Physicist
Years active	1995–2016
Known for	Research on Bose-Einstein condensates, fermionic condensates, ultracold polar molecules

Deborah Shiu-lan Jin (; November 15, 1968 – September 15, 2016) was an American physicist renowned for her fellowship at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), her role as Professor Adjunct in the University of Colorado at Boulder's Department of Physics, and her fellowship at JILA, a collaborative laboratory between NIST and the University of Colorado.

Jin was a trailblazer in the field of polar molecular quantum chemistry. Between 1995 and 1997, she collaborated with Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman at JILA on foundational research involving dilute gas Bose-Einstein condensates. In 2003, her research group at JILA succeeded in producing the inaugural fermionic condensate, representing a novel state of matter. By employing magnetic trapping techniques alongside laser cooling, she achieved temperatures for fermionic atomic gases below 100 billionths of a degree above absolute zero, thereby demonstrating quantum degeneracy and facilitating molecular Bose-Einstein condensate formation. Jin was frequently regarded as a leading contender for the Nobel Prize in Physics. In 2002, Discover named her among the top 50 women making significant contributions to science.

Early life

Born in Santa Clara County, California, Jin was raised in Indian Harbour Beach, Florida. Both of her parents were physicists; her mother also had a background in engineering. Her father, Ron Jin, who originated from Fuzhou in 1933, passed away in 2010.

Education

Jin completed her undergraduate studies at Princeton University in 1990, graduating magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics and receiving the Allen G. Shenstone Prize. She pursued doctoral studies at the University of Chicago, earning her Ph.D. in physics in 1995 as an NSF Graduate Fellow. Her dissertation, supervised by Thomas Felix Rosenbaum, focused on heavy fermion superconductors.

Scientific contributions

Following her doctorate, Jin joined Eric Cornell’s team at JILA in Boulder, Colorado, transitioning her research focus from condensed matter physics to atomic physics. She played a key role in characterizing the initial rubidium Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC).

In 1997, Jin founded her own laboratory at JILA and within two years succeeded in generating the first quantum degenerate gas composed of fermionic atoms. To circumvent cooling limitations imposed by the Pauli exclusion principle, her team cooled potassium-40 atoms occupying two magnetic sublevels, which allowed efficient evaporative cooling. This approach yielded a degenerate Fermi gas at approximately 300 nanokelvin—around half the Fermi temperature.

By 2003, Jin’s group was pioneering in condensing pairs of fermionic atoms through manipulation of interaction strength via a Feshbach resonance, enabling observation of transitions between a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) state and Bose-Einstein condensate phases.

In 2008, she introduced an innovative technique akin to angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) to probe excitations within degenerate gases with both energy and momentum resolution. This advancement permitted comprehensive examination of fermion pairing across the BCS-BEC crossover and provided the first experimental detection of a pseudogap phenomenon within this context.

Also during 2008, Jin collaborated with Jun Ye to make significant progress in ultracold polar molecule research by coherently forming dipolar potassium-rubidium (KRb) molecules from ultracold atomic gases. Their efforts facilitated direct observation and manipulation of chemical reactions near absolute zero temperatures, offering novel insights into molecular collision dynamics and bond formation processes. This work involved close cooperation with her husband John Bohn, who specializes in theoretical aspects of ultracold atomic collisions.

Honors and awards

In 2005, Jin was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences and was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007.

Among her distinguished recognitions are:

• 2000, Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in Science and Engineering
• 2001, Samuel W. Stratton Award from NIST
• 2002, Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award
• 2002, National Academy of Sciences Award for Initiatives in Research
• 2003, MacArthur Fellowship, often referred to as the "genius grant"
• 2003, Arthur S. Flemming Award in the Scientific Category
• 2004, Service to America Medal for contributions to Science and the Environment
• 2004, named "Research Leader of the Year" by Scientific American
• 2005, I.I. Rabi Prize awarded by the American Physical Society
• 2006, Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Award in Science and Medicine
• 2008, Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics from the Franklin Institute
• 2009, William Proctor Prize for Scientific Achievement from Sigma Xi
• 2011, Gold Medal from NIST, Department of Commerce
• 2013, L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award Laureate for North America
• 2014, Isaac Newton Medal from The Institute of Physics
• 2014, Comstock Prize in Physics recognizing groundbreaking work in electricity, magnetism, or radiant energy
• 2014, recognized by Thomson Reuters as one of the “Most Influential Scientific Minds,” alongside Jun Ye

After her death, the American Physical Society honored her legacy by renaming its DAMOP graduate student prize to bear Deborah Jin’s name, acknowledging her profound contributions to atomic, molecular, and optical physics.

Personal life

Jin was married to John Bohn and they had one daughter. She passed away due to cancer on September 15, 2016, in Boulder, Colorado.

External links

• Jin’s curriculum vitae at University of Colorado
• Homepage of the Jin research group