The dipole moment of an object is a measure of how electrical charge is distributed within it.

ECONOMIST: Molecular bonding

By placing the beams at a slight angle to each other, they are able to create an interleaved set of dipole traps.

ECONOMIST: Quantum computers

But their demonstration of dipole trapping at least shines a captivating light down the path to quantum computing becoming a practical technology.

ECONOMIST: Quantum computers

The result is that the atoms interact with the beam, are drawn into it, and settle at the tip of the cone a phenomenon known as dipole trapping.

ECONOMIST: Quantum computers

Using this technique, and a sufficient number of microlenses, the team created an array of 80 dipole traps, each of which captured about 100 rubidium atoms, spaced 125 microns from one another.

ECONOMIST: Quantum computers

The dipole moment of a hexamer of water molecules turns out to be almost identical to the dipole moment of bulk quantities of water indicating that liquid water is made up of cage-shaped hexamers.

ECONOMIST: Molecular bonding