Silicon chips with ultra-cold atoms could be the future of computing

7 April 2004 News

Developments in snap-shot magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), organic semiconductor technology, high temperature superconductivity, and progress towards quantum computers were some of the topics presented at a major conference organised by the Institute of Physics at the University of Warwick in the UK this month. (see http://physics.iop.org)

At the conference, Professor Jakob Reichel from the University of Munich described a revolutionary new type of microchip in which entire atoms, rather than just electrons, move around circuits. In these 'atom chips', thousands of atoms hover in a cloud above the surface of the chip, and move along air wires produced by tiny magnetic fields - like microscopic magnetic levitation trains floating above a track. According to Reichel, the atom clouds themselves are very special - they are so cold that all of the atoms merge into one 'superatom', known as a Bose-Einstein Condensate, which behaves like a wave and exhibits bizarre quantum behaviour.

Bose-Einstein Condensates have just entered the Guinness Book of Records as the coldest ever place - within a few billionths of a degree of the lowest possible temperature, absolute zero. Reichel says that using atom chips to move and manipulate Bose-Einstein Condensates could enable the development of 'quantum computers', which would exploit unique features of quantum mechanics, and, for certain tasks, be vastly more powerful than the conventional electronic computers available today.

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