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Exploring ‘the most spooky, weird kind of science’

Alessandro Rossi applies quantum physics to the study of measurements in a ‘mind-boggling’ marriage of disciplines.
  1. Josie Glausiusz

    1. Josie Glausiusz is a science journalist in Israel.

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Alessandro Rossi, quantum scientist from the UK NPL and the University of Strathclyde working on a dilution refrigerator system.

Alessandro Rossi is a measurement fellow at the National Physical Laboratory in London and a senior lecturer and UKRI Future Leaders fellow at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK. Credit: Alecsandra Dragoi for Nature

In my work as a quantum engineer, I wear two hats. At the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in London, where this photo was taken in April, I research quantum metrology, the scientific study of measurements based on quantum-physics principles. The instrument in this image is a dilution refrigerator, which allows us to cool our semiconductor quantum devices to 0.007 kelvin: that’s a fraction of a degree above absolute zero (−273.15 °C), a temperature that, in nature, exists nowhere in the Universe.

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Nature 596, 454 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02224-z

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