Flipping an egg carton of light traps giant atoms
December 23, 2011 by Nicole Casal Moore
Giant Rydberg atoms become trapped in wells of laser light in a new highly efficient trap developed by University of Michigan physicists. They liken it to an egg carton. Image: Sarah Anderson
(PhysOrg.com) -- In an egg carton of laser light, University of Michigan physicists can trap giant Rydberg atoms with up to 90 percent efficiency, an achievement that could advance quantum computing and terahertz imaging, among other applications.
Highly excited Rydberg atoms can be 1,000 times larger than their ground state counterparts. Nearly ionized, they cling to faraway electrons almost beyond their reach. Trapping them efficiently is an important step in realizing their potential, the researchers say.
Here's how they did it:
In previous Rydberg atom traps, atoms came to rest at the top of the peaks of the laser light lattice, and tended to escape. University of Michigan researchers solved this problem by quickly flipping the lattice, trapping the giant Rydberg atoms in the wells, like eggs in a carton. Image: Sarah Anderson
"Our optical lattice is made from a pair of counter-propagating laser beams and forms a series of wells that can trap the atoms, similar to how an egg carton holds eggs," said Georg Raithel, a U-M physics professor and co-author of a paper on the work published in the current edition of Physical Review Letters. Other co-authors are physics doctoral student Sarah Anderson and recent doctoral graduate Kelly Younge.The researchers developed a unique way to solve a problem that had been limiting trapping efficiency to single digit percentages. For Rydberg atoms to be trapped, they first have to be cooled to slow them down. The laser cooling process that accomplishes that tended to leave the atoms at the peaks of what the researchers call the "lattice hills." The atoms didn't often stay there.
"To overcome this obstacle, we implemented a method to rapidly invert the lattice after the Rydberg atoms are created at the tops of the hills," Anderson said. "We apply the lattice inversion before the atoms have time to move away, and they therefore quickly find themselves in the bottoms of the lattice wells, where they are trapped."
Raithel says there is plenty of technological room left to reach 100 percent trapping efficiency, which is necessary for advanced applications. Rydberg atoms are candidates to implement gates in future quantum computers that have the potential to solve problems too complicated for conventional computers. They could also be used in terahertz imaging and detection devices that could be used in airport scanners or surveillance equipment.
This work is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. The paper is titled "Trapping Rydberg atoms in an optical lattice."
More information: http://prl.aps.org … /i26/e263001
Provided by
University of Michigan
-
From lemons to lemonade: Reaction uses carbon dioxide to make carbon-based semiconductor,
32 comments
-
Thioridazine kills cancer stem cells in human while avoiding toxic side-effects of conventional cancer treatments,
3 comments
-
SpaceX private rocket blasts off for space station (Update),
42 comments
-
Climate scientists say they have solved riddle of rising sea,
31 comments
-
SpaceX capsule has 'new car' smell, astronauts say (Update),
4 comments
-
Why does a boiled egg rotates while a raw egg doesn't?
2 hours ago
-
Lightning strike in mindair
3 hours ago
-
Why does light move?
4 hours ago
-
How to calculate the repulsion force between a permanent and an electromagnet?
6 hours ago
-
Why does light allow us to see things?
6 hours ago
-
Room temperature superconductivity
6 hours ago
- More from Physics Forums - General Physics
More news stories
Is a classical electrodynamics law incompatible with special relativity?
(Phys.org) -- The laws of classical electromagnetism that were developed in the 19th century are the same laws that scientists use today. They include Maxwell’s four equations along with the Lorentz la ...
May 24, 2012 |
4.7 / 5 (18) |
43
|
Landmark calculation clears the way to answering how matter is formed
(Phys.org) -- An international collaboration of scientists, including Thomas Blum, associate professor of physics, is reporting in landmark detail the decay process of a subatomic particle called a kaon – ...
May 25, 2012 |
4.3 / 5 (22) |
52
|
Lying in wait for WIMPs: Researchers seek to dramatically increase sensitivity of Large Underground Xenon detector
Although it's invisible, dark matter accounts for at least 80 percent of the matter in the universe. No one knows what it is, but most scientists would bet on weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs.
May 23, 2012 |
4 / 5 (7) |
18
|
Hawaii lab turns laser-powered bubbles into microrobots
(Phys.org) -- A team of scientists from the University of Hawaii are working on microrobots created from bubbles of air in a saline solution. The bubbles take on their title of “robots” as a laser ...
May 23, 2012 |
5 / 5 (4) |
2
|
Sound increases the efficiency of boiling
Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology achieved a 17-percent increase in boiling efficiency by using an acoustic field to enhance heat transfer. The acoustic field does this by efficiently removing vapor bubbles ...
May 24, 2012 |
5 / 5 (2) |
2
Stunning image of smallest possible five-ringed structure
Scientists have created and imaged the smallest possible five-ringed structure – about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair – and you'll probably recognise its shape.
'Unzipped' carbon nanotubes could help energize fuel cells, batteries
Multi-walled carbon nanotubes riddled with defects and impurities on the outside could replace some of the expensive platinum catalysts used in fuel cells and metal-air batteries, according to scientists at ...
Change in developmental timing was crucial in the evolutionary shift from dinosaurs to birds: study
At first glance, it's hard to see how a common house sparrow and a Tyrannosaurus Rex might have anything in common. After all, one is a bird that weighs less than an ounce, and the other is a dinosaur that ...
Computer model used to pinpoint prime materials for efficient carbon capture
When power plants begin capturing their carbon emissions to reduce greenhouse gases – and to most in the electric power industry, it's a question of when, not if – it will be an expensive undertaking.
T cells 'hunt' parasites like animal predators seek prey, study shows
By pairing an intimate knowledge of immune-system function with a deep understanding of statistical physics, a cross-disciplinary team at the University of Pennsylvania has arrived at a surprising finding: T cells use a movement ...
Land and sea species differ in climate change response: study
(Phys.org) -- Marine and terrestrial species will likely differ in their responses to climate warming, new research by Simon Fraser University and Australia’s University of Tasmania has found.
Dec 23, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
Dec 23, 2011
Rank: 1 / 5 (2)
EVERYTHING will be used in Quantum computing, and in solar cells. EVERYTHING.
If Articles can be believed, Quantum Computers will have at least a quadrillion unique components.
Dec 23, 2011
Rank: 2.3 / 5 (3)
Dec 23, 2011
Rank: 1 / 5 (6)
Unless you don't have an education in science or an adept problem solving mind.
This is the age of confusion and ignorance if you ask me, we have lost more in the last 2000 years than anyone could have imagined.
I take a philosophical standpoint when it comes to the phenomenon of life and death. Being a cave man forces you to come into direct contact with the world, elements in their raw forms are inhaled exhaled, touch and felt, seen and heard, tasted and smelled, and life itself is more direct. Nowadays our life is not our own, we must query our devices in order to retrieve the information that's important to us. Is this really progress?
I'd rather die fighting for my life with some wild animal than in a hospital bed with ignorant children offering useless platitudes to console me as a approach something that cannot be spoken or heard or seen or sensed in any way.
Dec 23, 2011
Rank: 1 / 5 (5)
First time I was told about quantum "computing" I though wow, so you could actually just capture a photon from the big bang (or any particle really) and it would be connected to every other particle in the universe through quantum entanglement?
I still see people saying that if you know the position and speed of everything in a set system you could tell the future but quantum mechanics makes that impossible. I find that highly unlikely, all quantum mechanics has showed us is that with enough computing power you dont need to know the speed and position of everything, only one thing.
Dec 23, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (3)
"GRUNT GRUNT BURP!"
-Caveman
Dec 24, 2011
Rank: not rated yet
I wonder if they could gradually decrease the space provided by the saddles by slowly decreasing the wavelength ?