Dmitry Budker

Following his Ph.D., Budker held a postdoctoral position at UC Berkeley until 1995, when he was appointed to the faculty. He became a full professor in 2005.^[1] From 1996 to 2015, he was also a Faculty Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he developed tabletop experiments probing fundamental physics.^[3] In 2014, Budker joined the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz as Professor of Experimental Atomic Physics, leading the Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry section at the Helmholtz Institute Mainz.^[2] Since 2016, he has held a dual appointment as a Professor of the Graduate School at UC Berkeley.^[1]

Budker's team observed the largest parity violation in atoms using ytterbium isotopes in 2009, with a signal 100 times stronger than previous cesium-based experiments.^[4] By probing forbidden transitions in ytterbium-174, they revealed how the weak nuclear force mixes atomic states of opposite parity, enabling measurements of neutron distributions in nuclei.^[5] This work provided experimental constraints on the hypothetical "neutron skin" in heavy nuclei^[6] and for testing anapole moments predicted by the Standard Model.

In 2010, Budker's group conducted tests of the spin-statistics theorem, confirming photons obey Bose-Einstein statistics with <1 violation per 100 billion interactions.^[7] Using barium atoms and counter-propagating lasers, they searched for forbidden two-photon transitions that would violate quantum statistics, achieving a 3,000-fold sensitivity improvement over prior work.^[3] This validated the microcausality principle in quantum field theory.^[8]

Budker developed atomic sensor techniques to search for axions and other ultralight dark matter candidates. In 2015, his team used optical magnetometry to set limits on scalar dark matter coupling to electrons, achieving sub-femtotesla sensitivity.^[9]

Budker advanced NV-center magnetometry, demonstrating sub-picotesla sensitivity for applications in MRI and materials science.^{[10][11][12][13]} His 2006 prototype atomic gradiometer used nonlinear magneto-optical rotation in antirelaxation-coated cells, enabling biomagnetic imaging without cryogenics.^[14] In 2015, he co-developed zero-field NMR techniques using NV centers to detect J-coupling in chemicals, enabling portable spectroscopy.^[8] This work has been applied to study superfluid helium's optical properties^[15] and map cardiac magnetism in humans.^[16]

• American Physical Society Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in AMO Physics (1994)^[1]
• Miller Research Professorship at UC Berkeley^[1]
• Fellow of the American Physical Society (2005)^[1][17]
• Norman F. Ramsey Prize of the APS (2021)^[18]
• European Research Council Advanced Grant (2015)^[19]