The desqtopMOT, the world’s only commercially available cold atom platform from infleqtion, is being used for quantum education and workforce development. The platform allows students to gain hands-on experience with atomic physics, including light-matter interaction and atom fluorescence.
It also enables the creation of a magneto-optical trap (MOT) cloud of atoms. Bennett Brown, Executive Director of QuSTEAM, praises the platform for allowing students to explore quantum information science. The desqtopMOT is also a tool for commercial companies and defense primes to accelerate their position in cold atom quantum technology.
Introduction to desqtopMOT: A Quantum Education Platform
The desqtopMOT is a unique platform designed to facilitate quantum education and workforce development. It is currently the only commercially available cold atom platform in the world. The platform allows users to explore real quantum matter and gain hands-on experience with atomic physics. This includes light-matter interaction, atom fluorescence, and revealing the energy levels of rubidium atoms through spectroscopy.
The desqtopMOT platform is designed to gradually build up a student’s knowledge of cold atom physics. It exposes students to real cold atom quantum hardware and guides them to the point of creating a magneto-optical trap (MOT) cloud of atoms. After this, users can characterize the size and temperature of the Rb MOT and explore the unique physical properties of cold matter. The platform covers a wide range of topics including the basics of atomic physics, spectroscopy, light-matter interaction, practical geometrical optics, light polarization, absorption spectroscopy, Doppler broadening, laser trapping and cooling, Zeeman effect, Faraday rotation, experimental analysis, error estimation, and technical report writing.
Bennett Brown, the Executive Director of QuSTEAM, has endorsed the desqtopMOT platform and its teaching curriculum. According to Brown, the platform allows students to explore the cutting edge in quantum information science, generating and testing hypotheses about light-matter interaction with cold atoms. He also noted that educators and instructors find this tool useful.
The desqtopMOT platform is designed for a wide range of users. This includes 4-year colleges and Master’s programs looking for a turn-key lab course solution, community colleges building the next wave of the quantum workforce, and commercial companies and defense primes that need to accelerate their position in cold atom quantum technology. The platform offers students an immersive experience, guiding them through a comprehensive journey that starts with understanding the basic theory of using laser light and magnetic fields to create atomic matter.
Practical Applications of desqtopMOT
The desqtopMOT serves as a practical quantum platform, empowering students to become comfortable and confident in creating and controlling quantum matter. It is a starting point for students to explore commercial applications, such as atom-based timekeeping, sensing, and computing. The platform is user-friendly and offers a comprehensive teaching curriculum.
The desqtopMOT is a standalone system that can be installed and operational in hours. It offers users a vacuum system, an atom source (Rb), beam delivery optics and breadboard, a stabilized laser system including all control electronics, and a reference spectroscopy cell. The platform is built around the award-winning miniMOT V2 and offers two levels of learning: the Base Model and the Advanced Model. There is a data sheet for the full features of the device.
Upgrading the desqtopMOT Experience
The desqtopMOT platform is designed with a modular structure, allowing for straightforward upgrades as a user’s expertise grows. Upgrading the desqtopMOT laser hardware enables access to advanced experiments involving cold atom MOTs and expands the teaching curriculum to cover 13 total experiments. The Base model is expected to be available in Fall 2024.
The desqtopMOT reimagines how atom-based quantum is taught and enables users to learn the fundamentals in:
- Boost your Quantum Teaching Potential
- Atomic physics
- The nature and properties of light
- Laser operation, beam delivery, and optimization
- Geometrical optics
- Vacuum engineering and science
- Magneto-optical trapping of atoms
- Characterization of cold atoms
- Explore unique properties of cold atom ensembles such as Faraday rotation