November 27, 2013

Teaching matter waves new tricks: making magnets with ultra cold atoms


Magnets have fascinated mankind for millenia. A group of CUI researchers and colleagues has just published the results of a study on magnets in the November issue of Nature Physics; an illustration of the magnetic phases from the computer simulation is featured on the cover.

From the Greek philosophers to scientists of the modern era, which saw  the rise of quantum mechanics, magnets have been pondered and investigated. Nowadays, they are not only intriguing oddities of nature, but also constitute crucial building blocks of modern technology: Ranging from data storage over medical instrumentation to transportation. And yet, to this day, they continue to puzzle scientists.