Feed: Slashdot
Feed Link: https://slashdot.org/
---

Title: Physicists Create Quantum Radar That Could Image Buried Objects

Link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/08/12/0...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Physicists
have created a new type of radar that could help improve underground imaging,
using a cloud of atoms in a glass cell to detect reflected radio waves. The
radar is a type of quantum sensor, an emerging technology that uses the
quantum-mechanical properties of objects as measurement devices. It's still a
prototype, but its intended use is to image buried objects in situations such
as constructing underground utilities, drilling wells for natural gas, and
excavating archaeological sites. [...] The glass cell that serves as the
radar's quantum component is full of cesium atoms kept at room temperature.
The researchers use lasers to get each individual cesium atom to swell to
nearly the size of a bacterium, about 10,000 times bigger than the usual
size. Atoms in this bloated condition are called Rydberg atoms. When incoming
radio waves hit Rydberg atoms, they disturb the distribution of electrons
around their nuclei. Researchers can detect the disturbance by shining lasers
on the atoms, causing them to emit light; when the atoms are interacting with
a radio wave, the color of their emitted light changes. Monitoring the color
of this light thus makes it possible to use the atoms as a radio receiver.
Rydberg atoms are sensitive to a wide range of radio frequencies without
needing to change the physical setup... This means a single compact radar
device could potentially work at the multiple frequency bands required for
different applications. [Matthew Simons, a physicist at the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), who was a member of the
research team] tested the radar by placing it in a specially designed room
with foam spikes on the floor, ceiling, and walls like stalactites and
stalagmites. The spikes absorb, rather than reflect, nearly all the radio
waves that hit them. This simulates the effect of a large open space,
allowing the group to test the radar's imaging capability without unwanted
reflections off walls.The researchers placed a radio wave transmitter in the
room, along with their Rydberg atom receiver, which was hooked up to an
optical table outside the room. They aimed radio waves at a copper plate
about the size of a sheet of paper, some pipes, and a steel rod in the room,
each placed up to five meters away. The radar allowed them to locate the
objects to within 4.7 centimeters. The team posted a paper on the research to
the arXiv preprint server in late June.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

---
VRSS v2.1.180528