IBM 1999 Annual Report Download - page 40

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quantum mirage
almaden research center
san jose california
It looks like a freeze-frame of a technicolor raindrop, taken milliseconds
after impact — but it could someday lead to extraordinarily small
computing devices a few nanometers (billionths of a meter) across.
In February, three scientists at IBM’s Almaden Research Center
discovered a fundamental new way of communicating information on an
atomic scale using a “quantum mirage.” This scientific achievement,
which projects information about one atom to a spot where no such atom
exists, may make data transfer in nanoscale electronic circuits possible,
enabling ever smaller, but more powerful, computers.
To demonstrate the effect, the research team used a Scanning
Tunneling Microscope (a Nobel-prize winning IBM invention) to create
a “quantum corral,” the ring of yellow atoms partially visible here.
When a cobalt atom (the tall magenta peak on the right) is placed
at one focus of the ellipse, a smaller mirage appears at the other focus
(the lower left magenta spot).
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