Controlling the Quantum World The Science of Atoms, Molecules, and Photons (2007) / Chapter Skim
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1 Controlling the Quantum World: AMO Science in the Coming Decade
1 Controlling the Quantum World: AMO Science in the Coming Decade
Pages 9-29
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this report illustrates how AMo science and technology touches almost every sphere of societal importance -- navigation using the latest atomic clocks; surgery with a host of new laser tools; ensuring the nation's defense using global positioning satellites and secure communication; defending the homeland with screening technologies to detect toxins in the air and hidden weapons in luggage or on persons; improving health care with improved drug design tools and new diagnostic scanners; and underpinning the world's economies with a global communications network based on high-speed telecommunication by laser light.1 the immense advances in science over the past century have only just begun to explain the mysteries of the universe. one of the primary goals of AMo science is to 1For further detail on the connections between AMo science and society's needs, see National Research council, Atoms, Molecules, Light: AMO Science Enabling the Future, Washington, D.c.: the National Academies Press (2002)
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the six broad grand challenges outlined in this report describe key scientific opportunities in the coming decade. they are precision measurements; ultracold matter; ultra-high-intensity and short-wavelength lasers; ultrafast control; nano photonics; and quantum information science.
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amo science coming decade in the FIGURE 1-1 NIST-F1 is a cesium fountain atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado. Along with other international atomic clocks, NIST-F1 helps define the official world time standard.
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While much of our knowledge about the Standard Model of fundamental interactions comes from high-energy particle accelerators, AMo experiments have provided critical complementary information. Unprecedented precision has practical consequences.
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Future systems based on atom-wave interference will enable airborne characterization of gravitational anomalies at unprecedented levels to detect hostile underground structures and tunnels. Atomic data and atomic theory provide critical support in astrophysics exploration.
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Solitons are localized bundles of waves constrained to move in only one dimension and that propagate without spreading. These atomic lithium solitons oc cur because the ultracold atoms bunch together due to the quantum forces they exert on each other.
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they have a considerable impact on precision measurements, as discussed in chapter 2, and on quantum information science, as discussed in chapter 7. Also, these applications occur at the intersection of AMo physics and condensed matter and indeed AMo physics and other fields of physics.
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Focused beams from the highest-powered lasers can concentrate the equivalent power of the entire electrical grid of the United States onto a spot only a tenth of a human hair in diameter. the enormous electric fields in these focused laser beams dwarf the forces that bind electrons in atoms and molecules, literally tearing them apart in an instant.
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New ultraintense laser sources can accelerate electrons to high energies in shorter distances than any other method yet devised, opening up the possibility of building powerful particle accelerators in quite small spaces (see Figure 1-3)
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for fusion energy have been under development in the United States and europe for decades, but recent progress in ultrafast and high-field lasers holds particular promise for rapid advances toward a device that will produce more fusion energy than it consumes in heating the plasma (the so-called breakeven point)
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these previously unavailable tools of quantum control could help tailor new molecules for applications in health care, energy, and security. A frontier of AMO science is to observe the basic processes of chemistry and biology on the scale of a single molecule.
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Ultrafast pulses of x rays show great promise for investigating the structure of complex molecules. X rays are very short wavelength light rays with two important differences from ordinary light: they can penetrate ordinary matter and reveal the interiors of solid objects and they can resolve very small objects, down to single atoms.
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Nanomaterials promise the development of singlephoton sources and detectors, photonic crystals, environmental sensors, biomedical optics, and novel cancer therapies involving localized optical absorption. these opportunities are described in chapter 6 and briefly summarized below.
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will ever be built, it is clear that quantum mechanics offers a radically different approach to information processing, in which single atoms and photons would
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the quantum hardware now found in AMo systems is a key to realizing future quantum devices and will be crucial to the understanding and development of quantum hardware in complex condensed matter systems. Quantum mechanics contains radical features not found in any other physical theory.
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AMO physics is concerned with the control and manipulation of atoms, molecules, and photons and is therefore well placed for the development of quantum hardware. individual atoms confined with electromagnetic fields can be laser-cooled to be nearly motionless and to act as ideal qubit carriers of quantum information (see Figure 1-7)
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SOURCE: National Institute of Standards and Technology, copyright Geoffrey Wheeler. AMO SCIENCE AND NATIONAL POLICIES: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS the key future opportunities for AMo science contained in this report are based on rapid and astounding developments in the field that are a result of investments made by the federal government's R&D agencies in the work of AMo researchers.
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Multiple approaches to quantum comput ing and communication are likely to be fruitful in the coming decade, and open international exchange of people and information is critical in order to realize the maximum benefit. the compelling research challenges embodied in these conclusions are dis cussed in more detail in the following chapters, which also highlight the broad impact of AMo science on other branches of science and technology and its strong coupling to national priorities in health care, economic development, the environ ment, national defense, and homeland security.
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AMo scientists contribute to these national priorities in several key areas: • Advancing fundamental scientific discovery to improve the quality of life. • Providing critical knowledge and tools to address national security and homeland defense issues and to achieve and maintain energy independence.
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• Historically, support for basic research has been a vital component of the nation's defense strategy, making the recent decline in funding for basic research at the defense-related agencies particularly troubling. • The extremely rapid increase in technical capabilities and the associated increase in the cost of scientific instrumentation have led to very signifi cant added pressures (over and above the usual Consumer Price Index inflationary pressures)
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The extremely rapid increase in the technical capability of scientific instrumentation and its cost has significantly increased pres sures (over and above the usual Consumer Price Index inflationary pres sures) on research budgets.
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