At the quantum level, particles behave very differently depending on whether their spin angular momentum is an integer or a half-integer. Half-integer spin particles are known as fermions, and include all the constituents of atoms: electrons, protons and neutrons. Bosons, on the other hand, are particles with integer spin, such as photons.
Atoms are fermions if they are composed of an odd number of particles, like helium-3 or lithium-6. If they have an even number of constituents, like hydrogen, helium-4 or lithium-7, they are known as bosons.
Fermions and bosons behave in profoundly different ways under certain conditions, especially at low temperatures. Four years ago, physicists created a Bose condensate, a quantum degenerate gas of bosons. Now the race is on to do the same with fermions. Deborah Jin's group at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado has cooled a fermion gas to the lowest temperature yet (B DeMarco1999 Phys. Rev. Lett. 82 4208). And John Thomas and co-workers at Duke University have set a new record for the length of time that fermions can be trapped using lasers (K O'Hara 1999 Phys. Rev. Lett. 82 4204).
In the August issue of Physics World magazine Randall Hulet from Rice University in Houston, USA, describes the latest advances in the race to create a quantum degenerate gas of fermions.