Nuclear physics goes pear-shaped

摘要

Physicists in France are the first to create a random laser in a cloud of cold atoms under laboratory conditions. Random lasing involves light bouncing between particles located at random positions in a gain medium, stimulating the emission of coherent light in all directions. The physicists made the laser with a cloud of cooled rubidium-85 atoms confined to a magneto-optical trap. They used a pump laser to create a population inversion between two hyperfine levels of the same electronic orbital and a second, tunable laser to stimulate emission back to the lower level. The system could improve our understanding of astrophysics, as well as help better our understanding of quantum computing.