Scientists Create Molecular Bose-Einstein Condensate and Its Significance

TapTechNews June 7 news, scientists such as Einstein predicted as early as the 1920s that atoms and other particles no longer "fight alone" in an environment close to absolute zero, but condense into a "super atom", forming a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC).

The scientific research on BEC can be traced back to the physicists Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein a century ago. In a series of papers they published in 1924 and 1925, they predicted that a group of particles cooled to near rest would condense into a single, larger super-entity with common characteristics and behaviors stipulated by quantum mechanics laws.

Scientists have achieved the atomic BEC state in 1995 and have been exploring to also achieve the BEC state on molecules.

Researchers said molecules can rotate and vibrate in ways that atoms cannot, and molecular BEC can offer physicists the possibility of simulating and understanding a wider range of physical phenomena, but compared to atoms, the control and cooling of molecules is more challenging.

In the coldest place in New York - the laboratory of physicist Sebastian Will at Columbia University, scientists successfully created a unique quantum state material - Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with molecules.

This experiment was advanced with the support of the theoretical collaborator Tijs Karman at Radboud University in the Netherlands, and the relevant results were published in "Nature".

The research team used sodium cesium molecules, cooled to 5 nanokelvins (about -459.66°F / -273.1°C), to put more than 1,000 molecules in a huge quantum state, forming a molecular Bose-Einstein condensate.

Each polar molecule consists of a sodium atom and a cesium atom. They used two microwave fields to manipulate polar molecules: one to control the rotation of the molecule; and the other to make the molecule oscillate. These two microwave fields "join hands" to orient the molecules in a specific direction and prevent collisions between molecules, which enables scientists to squeeze out the hottest molecules and further cool the molecules.

This achievement can not only help scientists create super-solid materials that can flow without resistance, but also contribute to the development of new quantum computers.

TapTechNews attached reference address