The sound of an atom captured for the first time

The sound of an atom captured for the first time

• The scientists created an artificial atom that can be charged with energy

 Jcymc90 [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

"We have detected the weakest sound that is possible to capture", says one of the authors of the study in the journal Science (Gustafsson, et al., 2014; La Vanguardia, 2014; Méndez, 2014). 

Those responsible for this, were researchers from the Technological University of Chalmers. "We have opened a new door in the quantum world by speaking and listening to atoms [...] Our long-term goal is to take advantage of quantum physics to benefit from its laws, for example in very fast computers, we do this by making electrical circuits that obey quantum laws, which we can control and study", said Per Delsing, one of the people in charge of the study.

The scientists created an artificial atom that can be charged with energy. This is a particle of light, but the Chalmers experiment atom is designed to emit and absorb energy in the form of sound.

The atom of 0.01 mm in size was placed in a superconducting material. Then they directed acoustic waves on the surface of the material, reflected the oscillations of the atom and recorded the result with a tiny microphone. "We have detected the weakest sound that is possible to capture", said Martin Gustafsson, it has been explained that when an atom is manipulated, it creates a sound, "a phonon every time".

The sound is so weak that the researchers could not even hear it, only to capture its waves with circuits similar to those used today in quantum computers.

References:

Gustafsson, M.V., Aref, T., Kockum, A.F., Ekström, M.K., Johansson, G., y Delsing, P. (2014). Propagating phonons coupled to an artificial atom. En Science 346, Issue 6206: 207-211. DOI: 10.1126/science.1257219.

La Vanguardia. (2014). Capturado por primera vez el sonido de un átomo. Recuperado de http://www.lavanguardia.com/ciencia/20140915/54415039438/sonido-atomo.html

Méndez, M.A. (2014). "Capturan por primera vez el sonido de un átomo". En Gizmodo. Recuperado de https://es.gizmodo.com/cientificos-capturan-por-primera-vez-el-sonido-de-un-at-1633896968

How to cite this article:

Nocetti, F.A. (2014). "The sound of an atom captured for the first time". In NabbuBlog. Retrieved from http://nabbublog.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-sound-of-atom-captured-for-first.html