TU Delft researchers build sensor of 11 atoms long – IT Pro – News

Because we make electronics smaller and smaller (up to a single atom in quantum computers), individual atoms and their magnetic fields play an increasingly important role.

The current theory tells a lot about how the small structures should behave, but measuring them really is a problem.

The current sensors are too large, so you measure a global magnetic field (eg a very large group of atoms together). In addition, there are already sensors that can measure magnetic fields of individual atoms, but they have one very big disadvantage. In that case you can only measure in one direction. Researchers then determine a measuring direction in advance, carry out the measurements and then know how the spider behaved in that 1 nd direction. The other directions have become irrelevant, because the measurement forces the atom to rank in that one direction of measurement.

With these small sensors, the magnetic effects of much smaller structures (read atoms) can be measured. By subsequently laying them in grids with different orientations, in addition to a local field, the local direction can also be determined. That, combined with the fact that the sensors are also extremely fast, gives researchers the opportunity to gain a better understanding of how tiny atomic structures work (magnetically speaking). The way in which the spin of a single atom behaves over time is particularly interesting, which in turn can lead to important developments.

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