Laser cooling may be used to create "exotic" states of matter.

Byline: ANI

Washington, September 9 (ANI): In a new study, scientists have determined that the technique of laser cooling could be used to create "exotic" states of matter.

According to a report in National Geographic News, in a new technique, Martin Weitz and Ulrich Vogl of the University of Bonn in Germany used a laser to bring the temperature of dense rubidium gas far below the normal point at which the gas becomes a solid.

Previous research had been able to use lasers to quickly "supercool" only very diluted gases.

But, "here's a case where you shine a laser on something and it actually cools down, and not just a handful of atoms, but a macroscopic object," said Trey Porto, a physicist with the National Institute of Standards and Technology's laser-cooling group.

The process could be used to create fascinating new states of matter, according to the study authors.

"For example, if you can very quickly cool water much lower than zero Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit), where it would normally turn to ice, exotic crystalline and glassy states of matter would be predicted," Weitz said.

The new technique could also be used in cooling mechanisms to boost the efficiency of some stargazing equipment, he added.

"If you could cool thermal cameras that look at the stars, they may have less noise and be more sensitive," he said.

Since a laser's color is linked to its intensity, the new technique is based on using a red laser in which the frequency has been adjusted so that the beam affects the atoms only when they collide with each other.

Weitz and Vogl shone this laser beam into gaseous rubidium atoms in a high-pressure "atmosphere" of argon.

In the experiment, the rubidium gas fell from 662 degrees Fahrenheit (350 degrees Celsius) to almost 536 degrees Fahrenheit (280 degrees Celsius) within mere seconds.

Much more research needs to be done before the laser-cooling process can be used in real-world applications, study co-author Weitz cautioned.

But, NIST's Porto said the work already represents a major departure from traditional cooling of diluted gases, which are currently used for studying quantum effects or preparing gas samples for atomic clocks.

"I think the really amazing thing is that you can even get cooling in this regime, because it's a really dense gas and a very different mechanism," Porto said.

"Traditional cooling powers are so tiny. To cool a physical object by a measurable degree with a laser is amazing," he added. (ANI)

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