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Article: Record-breaking cold trap for pinning atoms. (nonuniform magnetic field traps and cools rubidium atoms to 200 nanokelvins)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- June 3, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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It's getting bitterly cold and unnaturally crowded in atom traps.
A year ago, a group of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md., chilled cesium atoms to 700 nanokelvins (SN: 9/10/94, p.175). Now, Eric A. Cornell and his coworkers at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado in Boulder have brought a clump of neutral atoms even closer to absolute zero.
Using a novel technique for cooling rubidium atoms in a new type of magnetic trap, the researchers recorded 200 nK as the temperature of a tightly confined atomic gas. ...