Laboratory for Physical Sciences Seminar Announcement
Wednesday, February 2, 2011; 3:30 p.m.
Refreshments served at 3:00 p.m.
Seminar Room, Lower Level, LPS
8050 Greenmead Dr., College Park, MD 20740 301-935-6400
Title: Atom Chips, Atomtronics and Quantum Signal Processing
Dana Z. Anderson,
Department of Physics and JILA, University of Colorado at Boulder
The term “atomtronics” is meant to invoke both a physical and a philosophical metaphor. The physical metaphor substitutes atom chemical potential and flux for electrical potential and current. With the development of atomtronic transistors and other electronic analogs, atomtronic circuitry seeks to do for atom-based quantum signal processing what electronics does for classical signal processing. The philosophical metaphor recognizes the utility of electronics as a problem-solving paradigm. Incredibly powerful system capability is built upon a very few heuristic principles applied over and over again in a hierarchy of increasingly complex functional building blocks. In this talk, I will discuss some of the most basic of those building blocks in the atomtronic context, particularly the atom transistor and matter wave oscillator. I will also present the status of our work to demonstrate atomtronic circuits using a hybrid optical and magnetic atom chip technology.