Atoms Gallery

Bose-Einstein condensate simulation

Bose-Einstein condensate simulation. Computer simulation of vortices forming within a spinning Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). A BEC is a state of matter that can arise at very low temperatures. Atoms are trapped using laser beams and magnets, and supercooled almost to absolute zero. At these temperatures, the atoms all have the same quantum energy state, and are indistinguishable. They coalesce, behaving as if they were one single super atom. During the process, two laser beams are rotated rapidly around each other, causing a stirring action that generates vortices in the atom cluster and facilitates the formation of the condensate. This simulation helped to confirm that BEC's are superfluids - a kind of liquid/gas that flows without friction

© NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Density in a Bose-Einstein Condensate

Bose-Einstein Condensate: a new state of matter. Graph of the density of low-velocity rubidium atoms forming a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC). The blue and white peak shows the BEC, a cloud of a few thousand atoms some 10 microns (millionths of a metre) across. A cloud of rubidium atoms was confined by a laser trap system, then cooled to 180 nK (nanoKelvin, billionths of a degree above absolute zero). At this temperature, atoms move so slowly that the quantum wave function for each one spreads out until all the atoms are in the same quantum state. This first BEC was created at the NIST and University of Colorado on 5 June 1995

© NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY (NIST)/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Control Room, Sizewell B Power Station

Sizewell B in Suffolk is the UK's only commercial pressurised water reactor (PWR) power station. PWRs constitute a majority of all western nuclear power plants and are one of two types of light water reactor (LWR), the other type being boiling water reactors (BWRs). In a PWR the primary coolant (water) is pumped under high pressure to the reactor core where it is heated by the energy generated by the fission of atoms. The heated water then flows to a steam generator where it transfers its thermal energy to a secondary system where steam is generated and flows to turbines which, in turn, spins an electric generator. In contrast to a boiling water reactor, pressure in the primary coolant loop prevents the water from boiling within the reactor. All LWRs use ordinary light water as both coolant and neutron moderator

© DAVID PARKER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY