Atoms can now be imaged in greater detail than ever before, using a familiar process in a new manner. Images taken using the new technique are 1,000 times more detailed than using traditional methods.  

University of Michigan researchers developed a new process that could have wide-ranging implications for technology.

Isaac Newton, a pioneering physicist born in 1643, was the first person to discover that white light is broken up into a spectrum of colors when it passes through a prism. By sending light through a prism or diffraction grating, scientists today are able to determine the chemical composition of samples in the laboratory. The technique can also be used to examine the atmosphere of distant planets, by studying light from the alien world's parent star, passing through the air on the body.

Rubidium atoms possess just a single electron in their outer-most shells. Researchers used lasers to raise that outer electron to 100 times its normal distance from the nucleus. Such a state is known as a Rydberg atom, which exhibits stronger-than-normal interactions with other atoms, in addition to its larger size.

A laser trap was created, using a lattice of finely-tuned pulsed laser beams. Each of these "pockets" was able to hold the giant atoms, and lasers excited electrons into normally-forbidden orbits.

Atomic transitions, often known as quantum leaps, are changes in levels of energy or angular momentum in electrons, resulting in chemical fingerprints.  Only certain changes are possible using traditional spectroscopy methods, and changes must take place in order. However, by studying "forbidden" leaps, physicists may be able to uncover previously-unknown information about the structure of atoms. The new technique allows the excitation of electrons into several previously-impossible energy levels, without the need to pass through orbits between the start and ending levels.

Quantum computers could use Rydberg atoms within their processors, taking advantage of their unique properties. Such technology would allow the development of computers thousands of times faster than anything possible using current technologies. Such systems could be used to run extensive climate simulations and perform virtual tests for possible new drug treatments.

"We can select which atoms we want to talk to with spatial resolution that is a thousand times better than the conventional case. This could be useful in quantum computing, which uses atoms that are bunched together in a dense array, but that still needs to address the atoms within that array individually," Kaitlin Moore, a doctoral student at the University of Michigan said.

Development of the new technique was profiled in the journal Nature Communications.

Photo:  Devin Moore | Flickr