Abstract
Bose-Einstein condensation is one of the most curious and fascinating phenomena in physics. It lies at the heart of such intriguing processes as superfluidity and superconductivity. However, in most cases, only a small part of the sample is Bose-condensed and strong interactions are present. A weakly interacting, pure Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) has therefore been called the "holy grail of atomic physics". In 1995 this grail was found by producing almost pure BECs in dilute atomic gases. We review the experimental development that led to the realization of BEC in these systems and explain how BECs are now routinely produced in about 25 laboratories worldwide. The tremendous experimental progress of the past few years is outlined and a number of recent experiments show the current status of the field. Electronic supplementary material to this paper can be obtained by using the Springer LINK server located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00114-001-0277-8.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 47-56 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Naturwissenschaften |
| Volume | 89 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2002 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Acknowledgements-Work on BEC at MIT has been a tremendoust eam effort and we are grateful to the past and present collaborators who have shared both the excitement and the hard work: M.R. Andrews, A.P. Chikkatur, K.B. Davis, D.S. Durfee, S. Inouye, M.A. Joffe, C. Kuklewicz, A. Martin, M.-O. Mewes, D.E. Pritchard, C. Raman, D.M. Stamper-Kurn, J. Stenger,C .G. Townsend, N.J. van Druten and J. Vogels. This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research, NSF, Joint Services Electronics Program (ARO) and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics