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Scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have created a quantum engine powered by entanglement – the quantum property that allows information to be transmitted over vast areas.
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The researchers created this engine by placing two calcium atoms in an ion trap, blasting it with a laser, and using the difference in penetration (rather than heat) to generate energy.
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This concept does not address the modification of old engine genes, but it shows that increasing the interference affects the efficiency of the machine.
The word “quantum” is being thrown around in all areas of modern technology. There are quantum computers, yes, but also quantum hard drives, quantum internet, and yes, even quantum engines. However – as with all these other “quantum” technologies – this is not your typical piston/burner situation. Instead, these engines add the wonky properties of quantum mechanics to the motion of the machine.
Although the technology is amazing, quantum engines come in two different forms. Last year, scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology developed a quantum engine that enhanced the complex interaction between fermions and Bose-Einstein condensates. This created energy by replacing heat (the normal energy of an ICE engine) with the “quantum nature of the particles in the gas,” news report read at that time. The engine was 25 percent efficient—not too bad to start with, but nowhere near being an efficient engine.
Now, scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed an alternative way from creating a quantum engine by using another type of quantum quirk: induction. The poster child of all things “quantum,” entanglement is what happens when two particles are in superposition, meaning that their information is inextricably linked—regardless of the distance between them. The study used calcium atoms in an ion trap, and at its peak, the engine captured the thermodynamic process that occurs when particles move from initial to highly charged states. The results of this study were published in the journal Letters on Physical Revision.
“Our most important study is the first experimental observation of a quantum engine with entangled behavior,” Zhou Fei, co-author of the study, said. they told a government-backed newspaper South China Morning Post. “[It] it is well known that the input can serve as a type of ‘oil.’
Website IFLScience describes the process as similar to a four-stroke engine. First, the atoms absorb photons from the red laser. Then they expand, are associated with a quantum load, and compress.
“We chose the occupied states of the two rotating ions as a functional element, which has [their] vibrational modes act as load. Through precise adjustment of the laser’s frequency, amplitude, and time, the ions were shifted from their original states to highly charged states,” Zhou told South China Morning Post.
This new method did not improve on previous quantum engines’ transformations, but the study showed that interference can produce effective energy. The team analyzed more than 10,000 experiments using calcium ions and found that increased levels of absorption produced improvements in electrical activity.
Like quantum computers, these input-driven “engines” only work at temperatures close to absolute zero. But further research could enable these engines and batteries to power more advanced quantum computers and circuits. Only time will tell.
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