CAROLINE DELBERT
In new research, scientists reveal a special laser made with a Bose-Einstein Condensate that can run forever. The secret is to manipulate the atoms, themselves, into behaving as contained waves, a principle that underpins quantum mechanics. A team of physicists from the University of Amsterdam, most from the Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute, conducted this research on the nature and duration of atom lasers. They published their findings on June 8 in the journal Nature.
A Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is a special phase of matter where the atoms combine into a homogeneous cloudy mass that acts as one body. Researchers must specially treat the atoms both to get into BEC state and to stay there, but the matter has special properties while in this phase. Typically, BECs are induced by taking very sparse gases and cooling them so that their interactive properties are further diminished. It’s at this point that the branches between atoms start to express themselves on a macroscopic level. Thus, the BEC is formed.
Technically, classic lasers use light energy, rather than so-called “matter.” A matter laser would unlock applications that a traditional laser is simply not good for, in the same way the traditional laser itself was an improvement over mere light; everything iterates in the sciences. And while before now there has only been a pulsing BEC laser, scientists from this project point out that that, too, was a waypoint on the road to a continuous traditional laser. And now they say they’ve broken the barrier to a continuous matter laser.
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