Condensates in a whirl
Physicists have been attempting to create a vortex in a dilute Bose condensate since these systems were first created in 1995. In principle, atomic condensates are ideal systems in which to study vort...
Wave-particle duality seen in carbon-60 molecules
The Vienna team sent a collimated beam of carbon-60 molecules through a slit made of silicon nitride and detected the interference pattern by ionizing the molecules with a laser and then counting the ...
Nobel prize goes to ‘t Hooft and Veltman
‘t Hooft and Veltman were both born in the Netherlands. In 1966 Veltman was appointed as professor of physics at the University of Utrecht, and ‘t Hooft became his PhD student in 1969. By ...
Fermions go degenerate
Brian DeMarco and Deborah Jin used a pair of magneto-optical traps to confine about 700000 atoms of potassium-40 at temperatures below 300 nanokelvin. This is about half of the degeneracy temperature ...
Quantum dots breakthrough
Only two other methods have previously been used to manufacture quantum dots: electron beam lithography and epitaxy. Lithography is a top down approach in which the beam defines the dot pattern, where...
A double-slit experiment in a single molecule
Photons from the laser can excite electrons in the water molecules into a so-called anti-bonding state. Molecules in this state can adopt one of two distorted shapes, both of which can dissociate into...
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Quantum dots become more ‘atom-like’
Banin and co-workers used quantum dots made of indium arsenide, covered with a nonconducting barrier of hexane dithiol molecules and linked to a conducting gold film. The radius of the nearly spherica...
The brain is ‘classical’
Nearly all the quantum models of the brain depend on how long the brain can keep quantum coherence. Penrose argues for example, that microtubles – small hollow cylinders that help cells keep the...
First for single-photon measurements
Photons are traditionally detected by converting their energy into an electric signal, which destroys the photon in the process. An additional problem in quantum measurements is that if one variable &...
Matter makes waves
Phillips and his colleagues produced a focused directional output from the Bose-Einstein condensate by firing two laser beams into the condensate. One beam adds energy to the atoms, while the second s...
Read article: Matter makes waves
