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Reviews of Modern Physics

Nobel lecture: When atoms behave as waves: Bose-Einstein condensation and the atom laser

Wolfgang Ketterle

Published Nov 20, 2002• 833 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The lure of lower temperatures has attracted physicists for the past century, and with each advance towards absolute zero, new and rich physics has emerged. Laypeople
DOI
10.1103/revmodphys.74.1131

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News Briefs

Researchers at JILA, a joint program of NIST and the University of Colorado at Boulder, recently announced that they achieved a temperature far lower than any previously produced and created an entirely new state of matter predicted 70 years ago by Albert Einstein and Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose.A paper in the July 14 Science by the researchers describe how the team cooled rubidium atoms to less than 170 nK above absolute zero.The extreme cold caused the individual atoms to condense into a ''superatom'' that behaved as a single entity.Before photographing the superatomknown as a Bose-Einstein condensate-the physicists cooled the atoms to 20 nK above absolute zero, the lowest temperature ever achieved.The achievement climaxed a 15 year search by physicists worldwide for the condensate.

Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology•Sep 1, 1995•0 citations

WHEN ATOMS BEHAVE AS WAVES: BOSE–EINSTEIN CONDENSATION AND THE ATOM LASER

Wolfgang Ketterle

International Journal of Modern Physics B•Nov 30, 2002•58 citations

Condensates on crest of a wave

Murray Holland

One of the remarkable things about low-temperature physics is that it offers a place where the hidden world of quantum mechanics can be revealed, often giving rise to spectacular effects. In 1995 the Nobel-prize-winning observation of Bose–Einstein condensation showed that a dilute gas of atoms cooled to sufficiently low temperatures could "condense" into an intriguing state in which all the atoms can be described by the same quantum wavefunction.

Physics World•Jul 1, 2002•0 citations

When Atoms Behave as Waves: Bose–Einstein Condensation and the Atom Laser (Nobel Lecture)

Wolfgang Ketterle

Atom plus atom equals…︁ vacuum! The destructive interference of atoms is just one of the surprising effects of coherent atoms. The long and winding road from trapping atoms to the atomic laser, passing the peak of the Bose – Einstein condensate, won Ketterle a share in the 2001 Nobel Prize for Physics. The graphic shows pulses of coherent sodium atoms (each containing 105 – 106 atoms produced every 5 ms) falling under gravity and expanding due to mutual interatomic repulsion.

ChemPhysChem•Sep 16, 2002•30 citations

WHEN ATOMS BEHAVE AS WAVES: BOSE–EINSTEIN CONDENSATION AND THE ATOM LASER

Wolfgang Ketterle

•Sep 1, 2003•7 citations

Bose-Einstein condensation and the atom laser

Nicholas P. Robins

•Jan 1, 2004•2 citations
Researchers at JILA, a joint program of NIST and the University of Colorado at Boulder, recently announced that they achieved a temperature far lower than any previously produced and created an entirely new state of matter predicted 70 years ago by Albert Einstein and Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose.A paper in the July 14 Science by the researchers describe how the team cooled rubidium atoms to less than 170 nK above absolute zero.The extreme cold caused the individual atoms to condense into a ''superatom'' that behaved as a single entity.Before photographing the superatomknown as a Bose-Einstein condensate-the physicists cooled the atoms to 20 nK above absolute zero, the lowest temperature ever achieved.The achievement climaxed a 15 year search by physicists worldwide for the condensate.