NIST physicists have made significant advances using cold atoms in experiments with optical lattices, cold atom collisions, and achieving the first Bose-Einstein condensation. These experiments involve cooling atoms to temperatures colder than interstellar space, using lasers and magnetic fields to slow, cool, and trap atoms. One recent accomplishment is demonstrating that optical lattices can diffract laser light like crystals diffract X-rays, allowing scientists to observe changes in the motion of trapped atoms as they cool. Another experiment measures the effect of the finite speed of light on the energy fields of two atoms during cold atom collisions, creating a weakly bound molecular state that only exists in the lab. These experiments provide benchmark data for large-scale modeling calculations and have led to the creation of Bose-Einstein condensates, a new state of matter predicted by Einstein and Bose.
Source: https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/1996/02/physicists-get-hot-new-results-cold-atoms
Keywords: Atomic, Cooling, Trapping, Lattice, Condensate
