Scientists are utilizing ultracold temperatures to advance physics, ranging from particle accelerators to quantum computers.
CERN’s Large Hadron Collider entered its final data-taking phase before a summer transformation to the High-Luminosity LHC, an upgrade delivering approximately five times more particle collisions. This enhancement requires cooling over 1,000 superconducting electromagnets within the 27-kilometer ring to 1.9 Kelvin, or roughly -271°C.
“We aim to be leaders in technology with this heat exchanger,” said Stefan Brohm, lead business engineer at Swep. Swep develops carbon dioxide-based refrigerant systems for the ATLAS experiment to minimize electronics noise. The superconducting magnets utilize niobium-titanium wire cooled by superfluid helium, allowing resistance-free electrical flow.
Researchers at TU Wien in Vienna recently created a quantum “wire” from thousands of rubidium atoms cooled to near absolute zero, where energy and mass flow without resistance. “The gas behaves like a perfect conductor; even though countless collisions occur between the atoms, quantities like mass and energy flow freely, without dissipating into the system,” said Frederik Møller from TU Wien’s Atominstitut. The atoms, confined to a single line, pass momentum akin to a Newton’s cradle.
Ultracold atoms enable the world’s most accurate atomic clocks. MIT physicists announced in October 2025 that they had doubled the precision of optical atomic clocks using quantum entanglement to reduce measurement noise.
Tech companies increasingly use ultracold neutral atoms for quantum computing. Atom Computing operates systems with over 1,200 physical qubits and projects 2026 as “the year of quantum execution and delivery.” Unlike superconducting systems, many neutral atom computers can operate at room temperature while offering scalability to thousands of qubits.
India has established a presence in ultracold physics, with TIFR Mumbai, IISc Bengaluru, and IISER Pune conducting research on laser-cooled atoms and quantum coherence.
