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The phrase "single atoms" seems misleading. The article describes the primary device as a cell containing a vapor that needs a laser to activate the gas and a l

The phrase "single atoms" seems misleading. The article describes the primary device as a cell containing a vapor that needs a laser to activate the gas and a laser to measure the gas. As far as I can tell the only thing "single" here is that the vapor consists of one type of element, which doesn't seem like an important piece of information for the title. Edit: "single atoms" -> "gas and lasers"

deckar01 8y ago
Here is an alternate source with more concise details and a nice diagram of the lasers and the cell. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611977/get-ready-for-atomic-radio/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611977/get-ready-for-atom...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- yazan94 8y ago
  This is really interesting, but I am a bit confused on the practical implementation. How could this be used to replace real-life systems? If I understood it correctly, a potential system would be made up of lasers at the transmitters, and a cloud of Rydberg atom gas at the receiving end plus a specifically tuned laser to saturate the gas. But this design runs into line-of-sight issues between the receiver and transmitter. Also, the Rydhberg gas needs to be contained in some way that will hold the gas in whatever place it needs to be but also be transparent such that the transmitting laser can impact the gas as required without interference from the containing medium. I feel like this is conceptually cool, but not useful/practical outside of a lab or unrealistically perfect outdoors environment. Does anyone know of any uses for this new tech?
  - deckar01 8y ago
    The signals are not transmitted with lasers, they are transmitted with traditional RF broadcasting equipment. This is just an AM/FM radio receiver that detects RF with lasers. The breakthrough is that it doesn't require a physical antenna proportional in size to the wavelength of the frequency it is detecting.

deckar01 8y ago

Here is an alternate source with more concise details and a nice diagram of the lasers and the cell. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611977/get-ready-for-atomic-radio/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611977/get-ready-for-atom...

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
yazan94 8y ago
This is really interesting, but I am a bit confused on the practical implementation. How could this be used to replace real-life systems? If I understood it correctly, a potential system would be made up of lasers at the transmitters, and a cloud of Rydberg atom gas at the receiving end plus a specifically tuned laser to saturate the gas. But this design runs into line-of-sight issues between the receiver and transmitter. Also, the Rydhberg gas needs to be contained in some way that will hold the gas in whatever place it needs to be but also be transparent such that the transmitting laser can impact the gas as required without interference from the containing medium. I feel like this is conceptually cool, but not useful/practical outside of a lab or unrealistically perfect outdoors environment. Does anyone know of any uses for this new tech?
- deckar01 8y ago
  The signals are not transmitted with lasers, they are transmitted with traditional RF broadcasting equipment. This is just an AM/FM radio receiver that detects RF with lasers. The breakthrough is that it doesn't require a physical antenna proportional in size to the wavelength of the frequency it is detecting.