By: Franyi Sarmiento, Ph.D., Inspenet, June 27, 2022
A group of scientists from the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands) announced last Wednesday, through a press release, that they have developed an atomic laser that has the particularity of remaining on uninterruptedly.
According to those responsible for the scientific project, published in the journal Nature, the construction of the device was based on the principle of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC), which is a state of matter created by certain atoms when they are at very low temperatures, close to absolute zero (-273.15 degrees Celsius).
This ‘exotic’ state allows atoms to be converted into what scientists call coherent matter waves. However, when there is an increase in temperature, the atoms do not stay together for long. Due to this situation, atomic lasers operate for a short time, since they do not produce pulses of matter waves continuously.
Trying to maintain the continuous generation of matter waves.
To solve this problem, a continuous wave (CW) condensate was designed from strontium atoms, which allows the pulses to last indefinitely. According to the researchers, coherent matter waves are maintained by amplification through the gain of atoms, which are stimulated by the BEC in a ‘thermal bath’. When this ‘bath’ is then restored, condensation conditions remain as there is no increase in temperature.
“In previous experiments, the gradual cooling of the atoms was done in one place,” said researcher Florian Schreck, who said that by using their “configuration” they were able to “distribute the cooling steps not over time, but in space,” which allowed them “to have the atoms move as they move through consecutive cooling steps.”
“In the end, the ultracold atoms reach the heart of the experiment, where they can be used to form coherent matter waves in a BEC,” Schreck said, adding that “while these atoms are being used, there are already new atoms on the way” to replenish it, so “in this way” it will be possible to “keep the process going, essentially forever.”
“Our experiment is the matter-wave analog of a CW optical laser with fully reflective cavity mirrors,” the scientists explained, explaining that “this test demonstration provides a new, hitherto missing piece of atomic optics that enables the construction of continuous coherent matter-wave devices.” In 1997, physicists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) created the first atomic laser, which emitted atoms instead of light. At the time, the researchers stated that because the atomic laser can only operate in a vacuum, it was likely that it would not be as widely used as the optical laser. “It will never be used in supermarket scanners or CD players,” asserted physicist Wolfgang Ketterle.
Source Actualidad RT in Spanish: https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/433099-crean-laser-atomico-mantenerse-encendido-siempre
Photo: Scixel / UvA
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