Ultracold atoms drive India’s quantum leap in precision clocks and future quantum computers

Key facts

• Ultracold atoms sit at the heart of the quantum-technology revolution.
• India has built a strong and steadily growing presence in cold and ultracold-atom research.
• Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) Mumbai was the first laboratory in India to create a Bose–Einstein condensate.
• Bose–Einstein Condensate is a state where billions of atoms act like a single “super-atom” with quantum effects visible on a macroscopic scale.
• Laser cooling, awarded the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics, uses light’s momentum to slow atoms to a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero.
• Today’s best atomic clocks based on cold atoms would not lose even one second over the age of the universe.
• Cold-atom gravity sensors can detect underground structures, monitor volcanoes, and test Einstein’s theory of gravity.
• Ultracold atoms arranged by laser light form quantum simulators that mimic exotic solids, superconductors, or black-hole-like systems.
• Cold atoms are being developed as building blocks for quantum computers to solve problems like molecular design and cryptography faster than classical machines.