Items tagged with "sensor"
Sensing atoms caught in ripples of light
Optical fibers are ubiquitous, carrying light wherever it is needed. These glass tunnels are the high-speed railway of information transit, moving data at incredible speeds over tremendous distances. Fibers are also thin and flexible, so they can be immersed in many different environments, including the human body, where they are employed for illumination and imaging.
Quantum Thermometer or Optical Refrigerator?
From NIST News
In an arranged marriage of optics and mechanics, JQI-NIST physicists have created microscopic structural beams that have a variety of powerful uses when light strikes them. Able to operate in ordinary, room-temperature environments, yet exploiting some of the deepest principles of quantum physics, these optomechanical systems can act as inherently accurate thermometers, or conversely, as a type of optical shield that diverts heat.
A quantum sensor for nanoscale electron transport
The word “defect” doesn’t usually have a good connotation--often indicating failure. But for physicists, one common defect known as a nitrogen-vacancy center (NV center) has applications in both quantum information processing and ultra-sensitive magnetometry, the measurement of exceedingly faint magnetic fields. In an experiment, recently published in Science, JQI Fellow Vladimir Manucharyan and colleagues at Harvard University used NV centers in diamond to sense the properties of magnetic field noise tens of nanometers away from the silver samples.