No, summer is not always as quiet as you think, and for scientists it's often an opportunity to get things done. From 1 to 7 August this year a major international symposium was held in Grenoble on quantum fluids and solids – the "QFS 2010" symposium.

It was organised by the Institut Louis Néel of the CNRS and chaired by Prof. Henri Godfrin. The event attracted 300 experts from all over the world, including two Nobel prize-winners, David Lee and Wolfgang Ketterle.

On Saturday 7 August two satellite workshops were held at the ILL. We were very fortunate in being able to welcome Wolfgang Ketterle, who won the Nobel for Physics in 2001, in the “Cold Gases meet Many-Body Theory” workshop.

Wolfgang Ketterle's talk

The Nobel Prize was awarded jointly to Eric A. Cornell, Carl E. Wieman and Wolfgang Ketterle "for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates". Ketterle’s research focused on experiments that trap and cool atoms to temperatures close to absolute zero. Together, the three laureates paved the way for the study of atomic ultracold dilute gases in quantum conditions.

Whilst this was going on ILL was pioneering similar studies into quantum phenomena manifested in simple liquids at very low temperature. In the 1980s and 1990s these investigations were led by a team of scientists including Henri Godfrin, the organiser of the QFS2010 symposium. Thanks to their expertise (and to the ILL neutron source, the brightest in the world) we were able to launch studies into quantum phenomena manifested in liquids such as liquid helium. Neutrons are particularly efficient in this area.

Ultra-low temperatures play an important role in the construction of theories and models in a wide range of research fields. Certain liquids and solids reveal high quantum properties at very low temperatures. Their study also opens the way to all sorts of applications. Some of these already exist – they include MRI and various power and telecoms systems, or ultrasensitive nanodevices – whilst others – such as the quantum computer – are more distant but no less useful.