{"id":244294,"date":"2026-09-21T05:03:07","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T10:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/tightly-guided-atoms-could-enable-low-power-quantum-navigation-when-gps-fails"},"modified":"2026-09-21T05:03:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T10:03:07","slug":"tightly-guided-atoms-could-enable-low-power-quantum-navigation-when-gps-fails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/tightly-guided-atoms-could-enable-low-power-quantum-navigation-when-gps-fails","title":{"rendered":"Tightly guided atoms could enable low power quantum navigation when GPS fails"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/tightly-guided-atoms-could-enable-low-power-quantum-navigation-when-gps-fails2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Within tiny halos of light clinging to a vanishingly thin wisp of optical fiber, scientist Jongmin Lee guides atoms like marbles through a narrow pipe. Rock the fiber and the atoms shift side by side; they just don\u2019t fall off. But don\u2019t be deceived by the seemingly delicate nature of his experiment. Lee is exploring how to measure motion precisely in rough-and-tumble environments.<\/p>\n<p>A quantum sensing scientist at Sandia National Laboratories, Lee is an expert in a type of motion sensor called an atom interferometer. In a lab, this device uses quantum mechanics to obtain exquisitely accurate measurements. Lee and his team are working toward building an extremely small, low-power version for field use\u2014small enough to fit on a specialized type of microchip called a photonic integrated circuit.<\/p>\n<p>Their latest results were published in the journal AVS Quantum Science, where the team reported trapping cesium atoms on a fiber only 420 nanometers in diameter with just 5 milliwatts of optical power\u2014about 2,000 times less power than an LED bulb uses. With just 150 nanowatts, the researchers can also take measurements that mimic atom interferometry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Within tiny halos of light clinging to a vanishingly thin wisp of optical fiber, scientist Jongmin Lee guides atoms like marbles through a narrow pipe. Rock the fiber and the atoms shift side by side; they just don\u2019t fall off. But don\u2019t be deceived by the seemingly delicate nature of his experiment. Lee is exploring [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":707,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/707"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}