A highly sensitive method to detect atoms has been developed at the Vienna University of Technology. Glass fiber cables are indispensable for the internet — now they may also be used as a quantum physics lab. The Vienna University of Technology is the only research facility in the world, where single atoms can be controllably coupled to the light in ultra-thin fiber glass. Specially prepared light waves interact with very small numbers of atoms, which makes it possible to build detectors that are extremely sensitive to tiny trace amounts of a substance...
