Exhibitor Press Releases

5/1/2010

ColdQuanta Ships its New Atom Trap

ColdQuanta unveils the miniMOT™, a miniature ultra-high vacuum for education and cold atom research.

ColdQuanta, Inc., a startup company developing technology related to ultracold and cold devices, instruments and systems, announced that it has released an innovative tool to assist researchers studying cold atoms. “The beauty of this device is that the miniMOT™ is a self-contained ultra-high vacuum chamber which allows researchers with no previous expertise in vacuum processing or the necessary equipment to immediately dive into the creation of cold atoms,” explains ColdQuanta president and cofounder Rainer Kunz. “This makes it ideal for both educators and researchers of cold atoms.”

While ColdQuanta has primarily focused on producing ultracold atom devices, the miniMOT™ was developed at the request of customers, in particular universities, both for the teaching and research of cold atoms. The device consists of an ultra-high vacuum cell, a rubidium source and an ion pump, in a compact and cost-efficient package. Customers will be able to produce cold trapped atoms at temperatures as low as three hundred micro-Kelvin in a Rubidium MOT and as low as 10 micro-Kelvin with sub-Doppler laser cooling.

“The tedious process of designing, constructing, and troubleshooting an ultra-high vacuum system isn''t well suited to undergraduate research programs,” said Andrew Dawes, Assistant Professor of Physics at Pacific University. “With the miniMot, we can walk in to the lab in the morning, turn on the trap, and start our experiments."

Researchers are currently investigating cold atoms and their use in optical lattices for quantum computing, atom interferometry, and in atomic clocks. The miniMOT™ complements ColdQuanta’s product line, which includes the RuBECi™ , a device to facilitate the production of ultracold atoms. Both of these innovations build upon research by CU-Boulder faculty member Dana Z. Anderson, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of ColdQuanta. Founded in 2007 to commercialize Anderson’s research, the company also received a $100K Proof of Concept investment from the CU Technology Transfer Office in the same year.”We’re pleased by ColdQuanta’s quick response to this market need, and hope that the new product will allow more investigators to begin working in this new research field, said Ted Weverka, a licensing manager at the CU Technology Transfer Office.

About ColdQuanta, Inc.
ColdQuanta''s mission is to focus on the development of BEC and cold atom generating devices and systems, allowing them to be accessible to a wide range of research, educational, and industrial institutions. ColdQuanta’s products are intended for use in scientific and industrial applications requiring high performance and reliability. For more information, please go to www.coldquanta.com.