a well controlled continuous beam spanning up to 100 ms, whereas their predecessor produced only short pulses of atoms. However, this does not constitute a continuous atom laser since the replenishing of the depleted BEC lasts approximately 100 times longer than the duration of the emission itself (i.e. the duty cycle is 1/100). Applications Atom lasers are critical for atom holography. Similar to conventional holography, atom holography uses the diffraction of atoms. The De Broglie wavelength of the atoms is much smaller than the wavelength of light, so atom lasers can create much higher resolution holographic images. Atom holography might be used to project complex integrated-circuit patterns, just a few nanometres in scale, onto semiconductors. Another application, which might also benefit from atom lasers, is atom interferometry. In an atom interferometer an atomic wave packet is coherently split into two wave packets that follow different paths before recombining. Atom interferometers, which can be more sensitive than optical interferometers, could be used to test quantum theory, and have such high precision that they may even be able to detect changes in space-time. This is because the de Broglie wavelength of the atoms is much smaller than the wavelength of light, the atoms have mass, and because the internal structure of the atom can also be exploited. See also Bose–Einstein condensate List of laser articles References External links Atom Laser Movie Atom lasers at physicsweb.org Research groups working with atom traps Quantum mechanics Laser types