Tag Archives: atomic cooling

When cooling down really means slowing down

Posted on May 5, 2020 by

Consider this post the latest in a loosely defined series about atomic cooling techniques that I’ve been writing since June 2018. Atoms can’t run a temperature, but things made up of atoms, like a chair or table, can become hotter … Continue reading →

Posted in Scicomm | Tagged Albert Einstein, atomic cooling, atomic trap, Bose-Einstein condensate, Bose-Einstein statistics, Carl Wieman, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, collisional cooling, diatomic molecules, Eric Cornell, Harvard University, laser cooling, Massachusetts Institute of Technoogy, NaLi, niobium nitride, quantum chemistry, quantum computing, S Pancharatnam, Satyendra Nath Bose, Shivaramakrishnan Pancharatnam, Sisyphus cooling, spin polarization, superconductors, superfluids, University of Waterloo, Wolfgang Ketterle | Comments Off

The imperfection of strontium titanate

Posted on November 29, 2019 by

When you squeeze some crystals, you distort their lattice of atoms just enough to separate a pair of charged particles and that in turn gives rise to a voltage. Such materials are called piezoelectric crystals. Not all crystals are piezoelectric … Continue reading →

Posted in Scicomm | Tagged atomic cooling, atomic lattice, centrosymmetry, gem fire, inversion center, perovskite, piezoelectricity, polar metals, polarization, pyroelectrocity, second-order phase transition, strontium titanate, superconductivity, surface tension, tausonite, thermal equilibrium, thermalization | Comments Off

The trouble with laser-cooling anions

Posted on November 17, 2019 by

For scientists to use lasers to cool an atom, the atom needs to have two energy states. When laser light is shined on an atom moving towards the source of light, one of its electrons absorbs a photon, climbs to … Continue reading →

Posted in Scicomm | Tagged adiabatic cooling, anions, atomic cooling, cerium, diatomic carbon, Doppler cooling, electron affinity, hyperfine structure, ion trap, laser cooling, laser-assisted evaporative cooling, microkelvin, nuclear spin, Sisyphus cooling, Sivaramakrishnan Pancharatnam, sympathetic cooling | Comments Off

Using light to cool sound

Posted on December 7, 2018 by

Laser light has been used to cool atoms down to near absolute zero. The technique is simple, if versatile. (And includes some history involving a little-known Indian physicist.) Laser light is shined on an atom that’s made to move towards … Continue reading →

Posted in Scicomm | Tagged atomic cooling | Comments Off

Collective spin modes in ultracold atoms

Posted on July 8, 2018 by

Physicists created a Bose-Einstein condensate of chromium atoms, ensured the atomic spins were each aligned 90º to the condensate’s plane, applied a magnetic field gradient and separated the atoms by a small but relatively significant distance, fired radio pulses at … Continue reading →

Posted in Science | Tagged atomic cooling | Comments Off

Remembering S. Pancharatnam

Posted on June 20, 2018 by

Scientists have combined one atom of sodium (Na) and one of caesium (Cs) to form one molecule of NaCs, achieving the most precisely controlled chemical reaction in history. They were able to achieve this using a fascinating bit of technology … Continue reading →

Posted in Science, Uncategorized | Tagged atomic cooling | Comments Off