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posted by martyb on Friday February 21 2020, @01:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny-tweezers dept.

Phys.org:

In a first for quantum physics, University of Otago researchers have "held" individual atoms in place and observed previously unseen complex atomic interactions.

[...] "Two atoms alone can't form a molecule, it takes at least three to do chemistry. Our work is the first time this basic process has been studied in isolation, and it turns out that it gave several surprising results that were not expected from previous measurement in large clouds of atoms," says Postdoctoral Researcher Marvin Weyland, who spearheaded the experiment.

For example, the researchers were able to see the exact outcome of individual processes, and observed a new process where two of the atoms leave the experiment together. Until now, this level of detail has been impossible to observe in experiments with many atoms.

The ability to control matter at this level promises advances in many fields.

More information: L. A. Reynolds et al. Direct Measurements of Collisional Dynamics in Cold Atom Triads, Physical Review Letters (2020). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.073401


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2020, @01:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2020, @01:14PM (#960662)

    he, this is pretty cool.
    they even but some multimedia (picture) into the article.
    now, looking at it, i am not sure where the atom cloud is. the caption is abit short.
    it would be cool if that tripod with sown of legs at bottom right quadrant would be the cloud ...
    one would assume that "grabing a atom" wasnt just some x-y axis plot?