A condensate, contrary to matter we deal with in our everyday lives, is a very coherent object. This difference is very similar to the difference between the sunlight (composed of all the colours of the rainbow) and the light of a laser (a unique colour). This analogy suggested the use of condensates as a source of a particular laser: the laser does not produce light but atoms! This is called an atom laser. The first atom lasers were created ten years ago and scientists plan on replacing the light lasers that are used today for some applications (such as gyroscopes, for instance) by atom lasers.
The bottom image shows a condensate (in red) producing an atom laser (horizontal light blue line). The above scheme describes the principle of the atom laser with the condensate as a source.
