Physics World Instrumentation & Vacuum Briefing 2021

Physics World Instrumentation & Vacuum Briefing 2021

In this free-to-read Physics World Instrumentation & Vacuum Briefing we look at how hardware improvements have created new opportunities in quantum computing – for example, when larger and more powerful cryostats entered the market. But smaller can sometimes be better. Spectrometers that operate at visible, near and short-wave infrared wavelengths are routinely used, but their large size makes it hard to deploy them on small satellites or drones. Researchers in the US are working to change that by slimming down their spectrometer’s optics. A group at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center is also at work shrinking the dewars used to cool the mirrors on balloon-borne telescopes. Physicists at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology have reduced the size of the magneto-optical traps – a vital step towards making cold-atom-based quantum devices small enough to be portable.

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