Scientists have squished two layers of ultracold magnetic atoms to within 50 nanometers of each other — 10 times closer than in previous experiments — revealing bizarre quantum effects not seen before.
The extreme proximity of these atoms will allow researchers to study quantum interactions at this length scale for the first time and could lead to important advances in the development of superconductors and quantum computers, the scientists reported in a new study published May 2 in the journal Science.
Unusual quantum behaviors begin to emerge at ultracold temperatures as the atoms are forced to occupy their lowest possible energy state. “In the nanokelvin regime, there’s a type of matter called Bose Einstein condensate [in which] all the particles behave like waves,” Li Du, a physicist at MIT and lead author of the study, told Live Science. “They are basically quantum mechanical objects.”
Interactions between these isolated systems are particularly important for understanding quantum phenomena such as superconductivity and superradiance. But the strength of these interactions typically depends on the separation distance, which can create practical problems for researchers studying these effects; their experiments are limited by how close they can get the atoms.
“Most atoms used in cold experiments, such as the alkali metals, have to have contact in order to interact,” Du said. “We’re interested in dysprosium atoms which are special [in that they] can interact with each other at long range through dipole-dipole interactions [weak attractive forces between partial charges on adjacent atoms]. But although there’s this long-range interaction, there are still some types of quantum phenomena that cannot be realized because this dipole interaction is so weak.”
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Bringing cold atoms into close proximity while maintaining control of their quantum states is a significant challenge, and until now, experimental limitations have prevented researchers from fully testing theoretical predictions about the effects of these quantum interactions.
“In ordinary experiments, we trap atoms with light, and that’s limited by the diffraction limit — in the order of 500 nanometers,” Du said. (For comparison, a human hair measures between 80,000 – 100,000 nanometers wide, according to the National…
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