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Thirty years of Bose–Einstein condensation

In 1995, two papers reported long-sought proof of an exotic state of matter — with applications in fields as diverse as quantum computing and cosmology.
By
  1. Zoran Hadzibabic

    1. Zoran Hadzibabic is in the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK.

  2. Ulrich Schneider

    1. Ulrich Schneider is in the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK.

This year marks 30 years since the fulfilment of a decades-old dream that redefined atomic physics. In 1995, two papers, published in Science by Anderson et al.1 and in Physical Review Letters by Davis et al.2, reported the first conclusive experimental observation of Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs), a state of matter in which the constituent atoms in a many-body system behave as a single, quantum-mechanical object.

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Nature 647, 860-861 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-03592-6

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 02 December 2025: An earlier version of this article contained a typo that conflated laser and evaporative cooling.

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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