Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Controlling Atomic Interactions with Light

Published

Author(s)

Ross A. Williams, Lindsay J. LeBlanc, Karina K. Jimenez Garcia, Matthew C. Beeler, Abigail R. Perry, William D. Phillips, Ian B. Spielman

Abstract

For the majority of the 20th century atomic physicists used light to probe and understand atoms. Today, scientists use light to manipulate particles with unprecedented levels of control, routinely cooling atoms to a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero. This precision control is vital for applications including atomic clocks, quantum computing, and the use of ultracold quantum gases for studying many-body physics, that is, as a realization of Feynman’s concept of a quantum simulator. Now, we report on the ability to use light to modify the interactions between atoms in a fundamentally new way.
Citation
Optics & Photonics News
Volume
23

Keywords

Bose-Einstein condensate, spin-orbit coupling, ultracold atomic collisions

Citation

Williams, R. , LeBlanc, L. , Jimenez, K. , Beeler, M. , Perry, A. , Phillips, W. and Spielman, I. (2012), Controlling Atomic Interactions with Light, Optics & Photonics News (Accessed March 29, 2024)
Created December 1, 2012, Updated February 19, 2017