Blueprint For a Quantum Electric Motor

TechReviewAl writes "Alexey Ponomarev from the University of Augsburg in Germany and colleagues have revealed the blueprints for an electric motor built with just two atoms. The motor would have one neutral atom and one charged atom trapped in a ring-shaped optical lattice. The atoms jump from one site in the lattice to the next as they travel around the ring and placing this ring in an alternating magnetic field creates the conditions necessary to keep the charged atom moving round the the ring. A team from the University of Glasgow in the UK in fact built one of these quantum motors back in 2007, which they called an optical ferris wheel for ultracold atoms. 'The next step, say Ponomarev and co, is to attach the motor to a nanoscopic resonator, such as a spring board or nanomushroom, and make it vibrate. If you can do that, they say, you'd be powering a classical object using a quantum motor.'"

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Re:Huh?

[omeomi]

How exactly is this quantum? Does it spin in both ways at once?

"In physics, a quantum (plural: quanta) is an indivisible entity of a quantity that has the same units as the Planck constant and is related to both energy and momentum of elementary particles of matter (called fermions) and of photons and other bosons." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum

What makes you think something has to spin both ways at once to be quantum?

Optical Lattice?

[PotatoFarmer]

So what exactly is an optical lattice, and why is it not considered part of the motor itself? Other than the fact that "motor made out of only two atoms!" is clearly a better-sounding story, that is.

Re:Optical Lattice?

[Anonymous Coward]

An Optical Lattice is a complicated array of lasers that create a egg carton like potential for the atoms (the atoms interact with the lasers via the Stark shift iirc). The idea is that the atoms then get "trapped" in the minima of this potential [well, they are still tunneling and all that].
Via the wavelength of the lasers and their intensity one can control "depth" of the potential wells and the spacing of the lattice, which is quite nice, because you get essentially a solid state system where you can change those parameters "on the fly", thus enabling studies of insulator-conductor transitions and whatnot.
And little games like that in TFA, of course.

Two atoms?

[clyde_cadiddlehopper]

I suspect a few more atoms were used for the lasers that generate the optical containment and the device that applies the magnetic field and whatever was used to cool those two atoms to near zero Kelvins. Sounds a bit like a quantum physicists' retelling of stone soup.

Re:Two atoms?

[blueg3]

They didn't say the whole system was two atoms, they said the motor is two atoms. The motor is the component that turns a non-mechanical energy potential into mechanical motion. The cooling system, the device that produces the magnetic field, etc. are no more part of the motor than the gas tank and radiator are part of the internal combustion engine.

Re:So.. what is the efficiency of this motor?

[SilverHatHacker]

Not really, it would be both running and not running at any given point in time, until you look at it...that can't be good for the calculations.

Suck it cops!

[Itninja]

I hope this one day scales up to car size. The cops would be able to tell I was speeding on the freeway, but have no idea where I was. Or they would know exactly where I was, but have no idea if I was speeding. HUP FTW!

I'll show myself out....

Re:Suck it cops!

[Red Flayer]

That's all well and good, Mr. Quantum Speeding Ticket Avoider Man, but remeber that the same principle applies to your car keys.

And what happens when you get into an accident? You'll be both dead and alive until someone opens the car door! (Is this how the zombie apocalypse starts?)

Re:So.. what is the efficiency of this motor?

[JeanBaptiste]

only in Boston.

Re:So.. what is the efficiency of this motor?

[Yetihehe]

I've seen an article, where authors said that it is possible to encode quantum information in "holes" in photon flow. For example when you have steady stream of photons, each emitted exactly after the same period, you can actually encode information in photons which should be sent in some cycles, but they need not be really sent. They stated at the end that quantum physics is so strange that a quantum computer which doesn't really work is the best one: it completes calculations and returns real results but because it doesn't work - it doesn't make errors.

wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Soon we will be ablr to have Quantum Hard drives

Re:Simulation != real

[net28573]

"it turns out that a team from the University of Glasgow in the UK actually built one of these quantum motors back in 2007, which they called an optical ferris wheel for ultracold atoms." Yes there is a device according to the article! note the word "built".