Patterned Surface Sustains Ultrahigh Vacuum
The problem with developing portable versions of cold-atom-based quantum sensing and timing technologies is that they rely on components that are decidedly not portable: bulky, power-hungry vacuum pumps. Typically, cold atoms are housed in an ultrahigh-vacuum (UHV) chamber that’s maintained via a multistage pump system. In a bid to improve efficiency and avoid active pumping, Nathan Cooper of the University of Nottingham in the UK and his colleagues have demonstrated a passive-pumping system, which, by sustaining UHV, enables a device to be moved after active pumping is terminated [1]. Cooper says that the team’s ice-hockey-puck-sized system could one day be incorporated into cold-atom gravimeters, quantum accelerometers, and magnetometers.
The idea behind the system is that a chemically coated surface soaks up air molecules remaining within a partial vacuum, thus further reducing the pressure by a means other than active pumping. Surfaces can be patterned to influence how particles move over them in targeted ways. The team shaped a titanium alloy into two differently patterned surfaces—hexagonal pockets and conical protrusions—both designed to increase the number of times an atom or molecule makes contact with the surface. The disk-shaped components fit into the ports of a commercial vacuum chamber. Testing revealed that the structured surfaces enhanced the pump efficiency by a factor of 3.8 per unit area compared to nonstructured versions. Numerical simulations confirmed how the gas particles interacted with the surface structures and predicted up to a tenfold increase in pumping rate for other achievable geometries.
The researchers say that their result will aid the development of compact, lightweight quantum technologies. The design could also be used in mass spectrometers, electron microscopes, and particle accelerators.
–Rachel Berkowitz
Rachel Berkowitz is a Corresponding Editor for Physics Magazine based in Vancouver, Canada.
References
- N. Cooper et al., “Exploiting complex 3D-printed surface structures for portable quantum technologies,” Phys. Rev. Appl. 25, 014047 (2026).