Physicists Create Quantum Radar That Could Image Buried Objects (technologyreview.com) 28
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Physicists have created a new type of radar that could help improve underground imaging, using a cloud of atoms in a glass cell to detect reflected radio waves. The radar is a type of quantum sensor, an emerging technology that uses the quantum-mechanical properties of objects as measurement devices. It's still a prototype, but its intended use is to image buried objects in situations such as constructing underground utilities, drilling wells for natural gas, and excavating archaeological sites. [...] The glass cell that serves as the radar's quantum component is full of cesium atoms kept at room temperature. The researchers use lasers to get each individual cesium atom to swell to nearly the size of a bacterium, about 10,000 times bigger than the usual size. Atoms in this bloated condition are called Rydberg atoms.
When incoming radio waves hit Rydberg atoms, they disturb the distribution of electrons around their nuclei. Researchers can detect the disturbance by shining lasers on the atoms, causing them to emit light; when the atoms are interacting with a radio wave, the color of their emitted light changes. Monitoring the color of this light thus makes it possible to use the atoms as a radio receiver. Rydberg atoms are sensitive to a wide range of radio frequencies without needing to change the physical setup... This means a single compact radar device could potentially work at the multiple frequency bands required for different applications.
[Matthew Simons, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), who was a member of the research team] tested the radar by placing it in a specially designed room with foam spikes on the floor, ceiling, and walls like stalactites and stalagmites. The spikes absorb, rather than reflect, nearly all the radio waves that hit them. This simulates the effect of a large open space, allowing the group to test the radar's imaging capability without unwanted reflections off walls.The researchers placed a radio wave transmitter in the room, along with their Rydberg atom receiver, which was hooked up to an optical table outside the room. They aimed radio waves at a copper plate about the size of a sheet of paper, some pipes, and a steel rod in the room, each placed up to five meters away. The radar allowed them to locate the objects to within 4.7 centimeters. The team posted a paper on the research to the arXiv preprint server in late June.
When incoming radio waves hit Rydberg atoms, they disturb the distribution of electrons around their nuclei. Researchers can detect the disturbance by shining lasers on the atoms, causing them to emit light; when the atoms are interacting with a radio wave, the color of their emitted light changes. Monitoring the color of this light thus makes it possible to use the atoms as a radio receiver. Rydberg atoms are sensitive to a wide range of radio frequencies without needing to change the physical setup... This means a single compact radar device could potentially work at the multiple frequency bands required for different applications.
[Matthew Simons, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), who was a member of the research team] tested the radar by placing it in a specially designed room with foam spikes on the floor, ceiling, and walls like stalactites and stalagmites. The spikes absorb, rather than reflect, nearly all the radio waves that hit them. This simulates the effect of a large open space, allowing the group to test the radar's imaging capability without unwanted reflections off walls.The researchers placed a radio wave transmitter in the room, along with their Rydberg atom receiver, which was hooked up to an optical table outside the room. They aimed radio waves at a copper plate about the size of a sheet of paper, some pipes, and a steel rod in the room, each placed up to five meters away. The radar allowed them to locate the objects to within 4.7 centimeters. The team posted a paper on the research to the arXiv preprint server in late June.
After 12 Years of Failed Attempts... (Score:5, Funny)
After 12 Years of Failed Attempts, James Howells, the Man Who Lost His Hard Drive Containing $742M in Bitcoin Finally Ends His Search
unless...?
X-Ray Glasses? (Score:2, Funny)
Am I finally getting the x-ray glasses my Batman comics were advertising in the 60's?
Epstein files (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe this could be used to locate the Epstein files?
Re: Epstein files (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
It's been what, 7 years now and the most anyone could do is bust him for not paying taxes (which republicans like to brag about) and owning a firearm while doing coke (which seems pretty republican in my eyes) but hey keep it up. How about Hillary's emails?
Re: (Score:2)
We already know they are in Don's restroom, with all the other classified documents.
Re: (Score:1)
The smell is better dissuasion than any lock.
10,000 times larger? (Score:3, Funny)
People need to know. I'll start sending out emails.
Re: (Score:1)
Some politicians are walking dicks already.
Yet another way to ... (Score:1)
... find where they buried the bodies.
Re: (Score:2)
They may finally find Jimmy Hoffa.
Re: (Score:2)
A friend grew up in South Chicago, near the stock yards. He said that when Hoffa disappeared everyone in the neighborhood stopped buying sausage and burger for a week.
Re: (Score:2)
All joking aside, this could be useful in locating flood victims.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Only boys? How sexist.
Is "could" doing a lot of work in the title? (Score:2)
The ArXiv article shows no items in front of any other items, and they ran this experiment in a radio quiet room. How does that suggest that this technique can find buried objects? I'm not saying it can't, but I don't think that was demonstrated here.
If this ever came to fruition... (Score:2)
Maybe I'm just wishing there were some way to get inside and image the Titanic before it's too late.
Quantum AI (Score:2)
Every buzzword must be used in all articles.
Parabolas are hard (Score:5, Informative)
This is a cool use of Rydberg atoms, but some of the use cases they call out are not compatible with the nature of the fundamentals of their signal. They need to stick with cases where they know the number of things they are looking for. They didn't list radio-telescope, but this seems like a better use case for this (if built with a shielded, narrow field of view like a traditional telescope) than ground penetrating radar.
Bigger, nastier problem (Score:3)
What about detecting land mines?
Re: (Score:2)
What about detecting land mines?
Good thinking but with land mines it's less ground and more ground coverage that is the problem. A lot of them were air-dropped rather than buried (not just the US, the Soviets did it too and just about everyone the Americans and Soviets sold mines to as well, Chinese and British aren't innocent either). So a huge issue is that they sit under foliage or other ground cover, ground penetrating radar would find them but for the most part, they're not underground they're under trees and bushes. Particularly the
Underground Imaging Problem is not the receiver (Score:2)
It's getting the EM radiation to penetrate the ground. Very low frequency can do it with poor resolution. Higher frequencies penetrate poorly. The existing receivers are perfectly fine, so not clear what the benefit of this difficult to implement receiver is.