Physicists have created a mirror made up of just a few hundred atoms

Scientists have developed the lightest optical mirror, consisting of just one structured layer of several hundred identical atoms.

Polished ones are usually used as mirrors.metal surfaces or glasses with special coatings to improve their reflective properties. However, physicists at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics have demonstrated for the first time that a similar result can be achieved using a layer of structured atoms arranged in a two-dimensional array of laser beams.

Newthe mirror is only a few tens of nanometers thick and about seven microns in diameter. Although a person is not able to see it with the naked eye, he could notice the reflection he creates.

This efficiency is achieved due to the fact thatThe mirror has a specific structure that suppresses diffuse light scattering and combines the reflection into a stable unidirectional beam. In addition, due to the close and discrete distance between atoms, incoming photons can be reflected from them several times before escaping, which further enhances the outgoing flux.

However, such a mirror is unlikely to be launchedonce used in everyday life, since during the experiment it was created inside a complex installation weighing about two tons. However, the research could help develop more advanced quantum computers, study quantum optical phenomena, and test theories of how light interacts with matter.

Let us recall that scientists from MIPT recently created a quantum optical sensor for precise measurement of physical quantities.

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