Advances in Atomtronics

Abstract

Atomtronics is a relatively new subfield of atomic physics that aims to realize the device behavior of electronic components in ultracold atom-optical systems. The fact that these systems are coherent makes them particularly interesting since, in addition to current, one can impart quantum states onto the current carriers themselves or perhaps perform quantum computational operations on them. After reviewing the fundamental ideas of this subfield, we report on the theoretical and experimental progress made towards developing externally-driven and closed loop devices. The functionality and potential applications for these atom analogs to electronic and spintronic systems is also discussed.

Perspective on new implementations of atomtronic circuits

“…The initial inspiration of the atomtronics field was to emulate classical electronic devices like diodes and transistors [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] or Josephson junction-based circuital elements such as SQUIDs [34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51]. Already in the early vision [34], atomtronics sets a new logic for cold atoms quantum simulators [52][53][54][55][56][57]: mirroring the I − V characteristics in solid-state physics atomtronics proposes to harness neutral matter-wave currents to diagnose fundamental questions in mesoscopic quantum matter.…”