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Maybe not down to a pea size, but possibly down to an orange size. Lasers are tiny, and "every direction" does not involve many of them, it involves some fiber optics, I suppose. The bulk of the device would be thermal insulation, and a volume for liquid helium + some piping to let it evaporate, and to replenish it.



You don't need any helium or nitrogen here, cooling happens only by laser cooling and evaporative cooling from magnetic or optical traps. The atoms are perfectly insulated in an ultra high vacuum. Electronics still take the bulk of the volume here, as does the laser system. While the lasers themselves are tiny indeed, the light needs to be manipulated before reaching the atoms. And yes, it involves quite a lot of fiber optics :-).




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