Adding a bit of quantum fuzz could provide a free power boost to lasers and solar panels. Blurry atoms that can exist in two states at once should help such devices more efficiently harness energy from light, a new analysis suggests.
“The key is … we can now do things in quantum optics that we didn’t think we could do 20 years ago,” says Marlan Scully of Texas A&M University in College Station and Princeton University, who led the new analysis that will appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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