Blueprint For a Quantum Electric Motor

TechReviewAl writes "Alexey Ponomarev from the University of Augsburg in Germany and colleagues have revealed the blueprints for an electric motor built with just two atoms. The motor would have one neutral atom and one charged atom trapped in a ring-shaped optical lattice. The atoms jump from one site in the lattice to the next as they travel around the ring and placing this ring in an alternating magnetic field creates the conditions necessary to keep the charged atom moving round the the ring. A team from the University of Glasgow in the UK in fact built one of these quantum motors back in 2007, which they called an optical ferris wheel for ultracold atoms. 'The next step, say Ponomarev and co, is to attach the motor to a nanoscopic resonator, such as a spring board or nanomushroom, and make it vibrate. If you can do that, they say, you'd be powering a classical object using a quantum motor.'"

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Re:So.. what is the efficiency of this motor?

[Yetihehe]

I've seen an article, where authors said that it is possible to encode quantum information in "holes" in photon flow. For example when you have steady stream of photons, each emitted exactly after the same period, you can actually encode information in photons which should be sent in some cycles, but they need not be really sent. They stated at the end that quantum physics is so strange that a quantum computer which doesn't really work is the best one: it completes calculations and returns real results but because it doesn't work - it doesn't make errors.

Re:Simulation != real

[net28573]

"it turns out that a team from the University of Glasgow in the UK actually built one of these quantum motors back in 2007, which they called an optical ferris wheel for ultracold atoms." Yes there is a device according to the article! note the word "built".