Trapped free particle
In advanced atomically precise technology (including nanofactories) normally everything is kept bound to the "ground mass" of the nanofactory at all times. It is in machine phase.
In some special cases though it may make sense to let go of a molecule/particle and release it as a beam into a chamber which is a lot bigger than the molecule/particle.
- The molecule/particle is free in the sense that it has no bonds to the bulk of the nanofactory.
- The molecule/particle is trapped in the sense that is still in a chamber.
In contrast to the mechanics of the nanofactory where nanoscale mechanics is far from quantum mechanics (see: Nanomechanics is barely mechanical quantummechanics) quantum mechanics has a big effect in this situation. The probability distribution for the location of the released molecule becomes very quickly much bigger than the molecule itself.
Contents
Interacting with trapped free particles
To interact with the probability density of the quantum dispersed particle(s) in a chamber one needs to move the interacting obstacles at similar speeds to the thermal one the particle shows (and the quantum dispersion speed maybe?).
Running superlubricating crystolecule bearings at these very high speeds is possible but creates so much waste heat that they must be spaced out quite far from each other and that they may unintentionally heat the trapped particle. Alternatively better bearings can be used. (See: Levitation)
Lowering the temperature reduces thermal speeds so the necessary speeds for interaction will go down. But the trapped particle will be more susceptible to waste heat too.
Quantum dispersion speed is independent of tempearture so cooling below a factor of 10 (~27K) may be pointless.
(TODO: run some numbers here)
(TODO: add diagram of shooting a nitrogen molecule into a chamber showing disperion @77K and @300K)
Kinds of particles
Everything that does not react with the chambers (diamondoid) walls should be ok to handle. In cold situations and or when the released part is too big it might be difficult to make it stop sticking to the insertion channel or the chambers walls.
- Sufficiently passive molecules like N2 O2 H2O CO2 CH4 C2H2 SF6 ...
- Small crystolecules (for whatever reason one would want to do that - quantum blurred bearings)
- ...
Usage of trapped free particles
Free flying atoms inside an otherwise machine phase system may be useful for:
- sorting atoms by mass / isotope
- research on quantum effects
- quantum computation maybe ??
- ...
Related
- Machine phase
- Estimation of nanomechanical quantisation
- Nanomechanics is barely mechanical quantummechanics
- Dystactic phase
