Research & Development World

  • Home Page
  • Topics
    • Aerospace
    • Archeology
    • Automotive
    • Biotech
    • Chemistry
    • Environment
    • Energy
    • Life Science
    • Material Science
    • R&D Market Pulse
    • R&D Management
    • Physics
  • Technology
    • 3D Printing
    • A.I./Robotics
    • Battery Technology
    • Imaging
    • Nanotechnology
    • Semiconductors
  • Controlled Environments
    • Cleanrooms
    • Graphene
    • Lasers
    • Regulations/Standards
    • Sensors
  • Scientific Computing
    • Big Data
    • HPC/Supercomputing
    • Informatics
    • Security
    • Software
  • R&D 100 Awards
    • ENTER NOW
    • 2020 Winners
    • Winner Archive
    • R&D 100 Conference
  • Resources
    • Digital Issues
    • Podcasts
    • Subscribe
  • 2021 Funding Forecast
  • COVID-19

‘Quantum tornadoes’ pave the way for ultra-precise measuring, control

By R&D Editors | December 4, 2012

Polariton quantum rivers flow from four hills creating quantum tornadoes in the valley. Image: Natasha Berloff from DAMTPTornado-like vortexes can be produced in bizarre fluids that are controlled by quantum mechanics, completely unlike normal liquids. New research published in the journal Nature Communications demonstrates how massed ranks of these quantum twisters line up in rows, and paves the way for engineering quantum circuits and chips measuring motion ultra-precisely.

The destructive power of rampaging tornadoes defeats the human ability to control them. A Cambridge University team has managed to create and control hundreds of tiny twisters on a semiconductor chip. By controlling where electrons move and how they interact with light, the team created a marriage of electrons and photons that form a new quantum particle called a “polariton.”

The results come from a collaboration between the experimental team in the NanoPhotonics Centre led by Jeremy Baumberg and the theoretical quantum fluids group of Natalia Berloff.

“Being half-light and half-matter, these particles are feather-light and move quickly around, sloshing and cascading much like water in a mountain river,” says Berloff.

Most excitingly, the team says, these quantum systems are actually large, the width of a human hair, and the effects can be seen though a normal optical microscope.

Using ultra-high quality samples produced by a team from Crete, the researchers exerted unprecedented control on possible flows they can arouse within this liquid: forcing it to flow down a hill, over a mountainous terrain, forming quiet lakes and wildly raging quantum oceans.

By creating polaritons at the top of several hills and letting them flow downhill, the group was able to form regular arrays of hundreds of tornadoes spiraling in alternating directions along well-defined canyons. By changing the number of hills, the distance between them and the rate of polariton creation, the researchers could vary the separation, the size, and number of the twister cores, achieving a long held dream of creating and controlling macroscopic quantum states.

But quantum mechanics responsible for creating such fluids makes quantum tornadoes act even more intriguingly than their classical counterparts.  Quantum vortices can only swirl around in fixed “quantized” amounts and the liquids at the top of the various hills synchronize as soon as they mix down in the valleys—just two examples of quantum mechanics that can now be seen directly.

Quantum tornadoes can be reconfigured on the fly and pave the way to widespread applications in the control of quantum fluid circuits.  Creating arbitrary configurations of polariton liquids leads to even more complicated quantum superpositions and lays groundwork for polariton interferometers (devices that measure small movements and surface irregularities) that respond extremely sensitively to even the slightest changes in the environment.

Source: University of Cambridge

Related Articles Read More >

Dean Kamen RD
Dean Kamen speaks out on U.S. and global innovation
R&D 100 winner of the day: (Continuously) Rotating Wind Turbine UAV Inspection System
trinamiX to present nolecular sensing technology for use in mobile devices at Snapdragon Tech Summit Digital 2020
Persedo’s innovative processing of distilled spirits is Episode 3 of R&D 100 – The Podcast

Need R&D World news in a minute?

We Deliver!
R&D World Enewsletters get you caught up on all the mission critical news you need in research and development. Sign up today.
Enews Signup
Tweets by @RandDWorld

R&D World Digital Issues

February 2020 issue

Browse the most current issue of R&D World and back issues in an easy to use high quality format. Clip, share and download with the leading R& magazine today.

Research & Development World
  • Subscribe to R&D World Magazine
  • Enews Sign Up
  • Contact Us
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing
  • 2021 Global Funding Forecast

Copyright © 2021 WTWH Media LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media
Privacy Policy | Advertising | About Us

Search R&D World

  • Home Page
  • Topics
    • Aerospace
    • Archeology
    • Automotive
    • Biotech
    • Chemistry
    • Environment
    • Energy
    • Life Science
    • Material Science
    • R&D Market Pulse
    • R&D Management
    • Physics
  • Technology
    • 3D Printing
    • A.I./Robotics
    • Battery Technology
    • Imaging
    • Nanotechnology
    • Semiconductors
  • Controlled Environments
    • Cleanrooms
    • Graphene
    • Lasers
    • Regulations/Standards
    • Sensors
  • Scientific Computing
    • Big Data
    • HPC/Supercomputing
    • Informatics
    • Security
    • Software
  • R&D 100 Awards
    • ENTER NOW
    • 2020 Winners
    • Winner Archive
    • R&D 100 Conference
  • Resources
    • Digital Issues
    • Podcasts
    • Subscribe
  • 2021 Funding Forecast
  • COVID-19