Prize Recipient

Irfan Siddiqi
University of California, Berkeley

"For the development of the Josephson bifurcation amplifier for ultrasensitive measurements at the quantum limit."

Irfan Siddiqi grew up in New York City and developed a strong interest in mathematics, physics and chemistry while attending the Bronx High School of Science and the Columbia University Science Honors Program. Irfan was a Harvard undergraduate and received his A.B. cum laude in chemistry and physics in 1997. A summer internship at HYPRES, inc. introduced him to superconducting circuits and convinced him to pursue graduate work at Yale on aluminum hot-electron bolometers. After receiving his Ph.D. in 2002, Irfan stayed at Yale to pursue postdoctoral research on superconducting qubits. A major outcome of this work is the Josephson Bifurcation Amplifier – a device which harnesses the non-dissipative, non-linearity of the Josephson junction to realize high gain, minimal backaction measurements of quantum systems. In the summer of 2006, Irfan joined the UC Berkeley physics department. His current research interests include coherence measurements of single molecule magnets using novel dispersive magnetometers, topological quantum computation, nanotube based quantum bits, and measurements of quantum backaction. Irfan is a recipient of the Yale Harding Bliss prize, the Lowell House Perkins Prize, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Medal, and the Columbia Engineering Alumni association award. He is a member of the APS and the AAAS.Irfan Siddiqi grew up in New York City and developed a strong interest in mathematics, physics and chemistry while attending the Bronx High School of Science and the Columbia University Science Honors Program. Irfan was a Harvard undergraduate and received his A.B. cum laude in chemistry and physics in 1997. A summer internship at HYPRES, inc. introduced him to superconducting circuits and convinced him to pursue graduate work at Yale on aluminum hot-electron bolometers. After receiving his Ph.D. in 2002, Irfan stayed at Yale to pursue postdoctoral research on superconducting qubits. A major outcome of this work is the Josephson Bifurcation Amplifier – a device which harnesses the non-dissipative, non-linearity of the Josephson junction to realize high gain, minimal backaction measurements of quantum systems. In the summer of 2006, Irfan joined the UC Berkeley physics department. His current research interests include coherence measurements of single molecule magnets using novel dispersive magnetometers, topological quantum computation, nanotube based quantum bits, and measurements of quantum backaction. Irfan is a recipient of the Yale Harding Bliss prize, the Lowell House Perkins Prize, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Medal, and the Columbia Engineering Alumni association award. He is a member of the APS and the AAAS.

A. Baha Balantekin (Chair), John Hopfield, Marvin Cohen, Helen R. Quinn, Ivo Souza ('04 recipient)