University of Ottawa researchers have discovered new ways to control atoms that could both broaden physics knowledge and have practical applications for medicine and computing.
The team isn’t expecting its work to lead to real-world uses in the near future.
Physics professor Ravi Bhardwaj and fellow scientists have published a paper in Nature Communications showing that it’s possible to control the ejection of electrons from atoms and molecules (thus ionizing them) using optical vortex beams, or light beams with angular momentum.
Previously, the scientific community has been aware of very few ways to control this ionization, which takes place both naturally, such as in lightning, and in technologies like plasma TVs.
Bhardawaj told BetaKit that the findings could eventually lead to significant improvements in a number of fields, particularly in medical imaging. The reliance on light limits the spatial resolution of imaging due to diffraction limits (that is, spreading the light beams out). There have been efforts to overcome this through stimulated emission depletion microscopy (STED). This new approach could one day allow for “better spatial resolution” through the use of one optical vortex beam to localize that light below the diffraction limit.
The new ionization method could also be applied to attosecond science, which deals with light-matter interaction at very small time scales, and plasma physics, Bhardawaj added. The technique could produce what he described as “energetic extreme ultraviolet light” and charge particles that could be helpful with imaging.
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The researchers added that this could be helpful for controlling individual particles, a key element in quantum computers. Quantum systems write and read data by changing the intensity and frequency of incident light. Optical vortex beams could offer an “additional degree of control,” according to Bhardawaj.
The team isn’t expecting its work to lead to real-world uses in the near future. This is “fundamental research,” Bhardawaj said, and the researchers are “not attempting to commercialize it.”
The news comes amid a wave of Canadian breakthroughs and investments in the quantum sector. Vancouver-based Photonic claimed in February to have discovered a more efficient quantum error correction method. Earlier in March, Canada-born company D-Wave maintained that it had achieved quantum supremacy, or solving a problem with a quantum computer that would be virtually impossible for a conventional computer in a reasonable time.
More than 100 quantum research projects received $78.7 million in total federal funding in January, while the government provided $8.1 million to a startup and three innovation partners to the quantum sector in Sherbrooke, Que.
Image courtesy of Hal Gatewood on Unsplash.