From 1967 he studied physics at the University of Amsterdam. Both his doctoral research and Doctor of Philosophy research was with Isaac Silvera, on the subject of Bose-Einstein Condensation. The aim of his Doctor of Philosophy research was to make a gas of atomic hydrogen, which could become the world"s first quantum gas.
Because of the difficulty of his research subject, his promotion took six years instead of four. This might then be a suitable candidate for a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). Jook Walraven developed a method of evaporative cooling: a tank was filled with a gas of atomic hydrogen, from which the "hottest" (fastest) atoms were removed.
This resulted in a lower temperature of the whole gas.
To keep the atomic hydrogen from forming hydrogen molecules, the atoms were spin-polarized by a 7 tesla magnet. However, due to interactions with the wall of the tank, the gas did not cool enough to reach the critical temperature at which it condensates into a BEC. In the meantime, several other groups had started to do research on the subject, some of which were actually doing research in laser science.
In 1996 Jook Walraven was offered the position of director at AMOLF, which he accepted. In November 2005, Jook Walraven was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society (Australian Psychological Society ), "for pioneering experimental and theoretical contributions to the physics of quantum gases".
In order to achieve this state, the gas of atomic hydrogen would have to be cooled to only a few kelvins, without recombining to molecular hydrogen. In a few years, Silvera and Walraven had achieved the first quantum-gas. Two of these groups managed to achieve the first BEC in 1995 by using evaporative cooling in combination with laser cooling. He decided to change fields to laser science, and achieved his first BEC a few years later.
