How to reduce shockwaves in quantum beam experiments

The tiny cone-shaped "skimmers" used in experiments looking for exotic chemical-quantum phenomena resemble the intake mechanisms of aircraft engines, and they perform similar functions: Each directs the flow of gas - the engine intake controls the supply of air for burning fuel, and the "skimmer" creates beams of cold flying atoms or molecules. While skimmers have been a necessary component in atomic and molecular-beam experiments for decades, they were also known to impose a fundamental limit o...