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| Technology Review |
TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: Oscillating circuits are the workhorses of many electronic devices. In particular, oscillating electrons emit electromagnetic waves, a mechanism that has lead to one or two applications that readers may have come across.
Now Seth Caliga and pals at the University of Colorado and National Institute for Standards and Technology in Boulder have built a version of this kind of circuit that works with atoms rather than electrons.
Their atomtronic circuit generates an oscillating atom current that emits matter waves in which atoms carry energy through space.
The heart of their device is an atomtronic transistor--an optomagnetic trap with three compartments that can hold a Bose Einstein Condensate of rubidium atoms cooled almost to absolute zero.
In an analogy with electronic transistors, Caliga and co call these compartments the source, gate and drain (with the gate sandwiched between the source and drain). The optical barrier between the compartments prevents atoms from moving freely between them.
Physics arXiv: A Matterwave Transistor Oscillator
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