Physicists have demonstrated a new tool for controlling ultracold gases and ultracold chemistry: electric fields." id="metasummary.New tool for controlling ultracold gases: Electric fields Science News Share Blog Cite Print Email Bookmark New Tool for Controlling Ultracold Gases: Electric Fields ScienceDaily (Apr. 28, 2010) Physicists at JILA have demonstrated a new tool for controlling ultracold gases and ultracold chemistry: electric fields. See Also: Matter Energy Organic Chemistry Chemistry Electricity Physics Nature of Water Quantum Physics Reference Bose-Einstein condensate Electrical conduction Mechanics Chemical bond As described in the April 29 issue of Nature,* JILA scientists discovered that applying a small electric field spurs a dramatic increase in chemical reactions in their gas of ultracold molecules. JILA is a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado at Boulder. The discovery builds on the same JILA research team's recent pioneering observation of how molecules behave in the chilly world near absolute zero, which is governed by the curious rules of submicroscopic quantum physics. In this realm, the molecules act like waves instead of particles, and overlap of the waves determines whether chemical reactions occur to create different molecules. In their experiments, researchers study chemical reactions between pairs of ultracold molecules, each consisting of a single potassium (K) atom and a single rubidium (Rb) atom. These KRb molecules are susceptible to electric fields because they are electrically polar: they have a positive electrical charge at the rubidium end of the molecule and a negative charge at the potassium end. In this latest publication, the researchers measured how electrical fields can control the rate at which these KRb molecules react, discovering how to speed up the reactions or slow them down. Controlling reactions in this way can allow researchers to create molecular products tailored for practical applications...
