BOULDER - The technology that Boulder-based ColdQuanta Inc. is commercializing could potentially impact everyone in the world.

It's thought to help improve navigation systems for planes, submarines and satellites, improve accuracy for atomic clocks and supply researchers with incredibly precise measurements.

"The big ideas will be things you don't dream of today," said Rainer Kunz, ColdQuanta's co-founder, president and chief executive officer.

Since a couple University of Colorado at Boulder researchers, and one non-CU scientist, began working on ultra-cold atom technology (Bose-Einstein condensate) in the mid-1990s and received a Nobel Prize for their physics technology in 2001, ColdQuanta has been working to consolidate a lab-size operation into a small box.

"I'm delighted that someone's taking this ball and running with it," said Eric Cornell, a National Institute of Standards and Technology scientist, CU professor and one of the researchers who received a Nobel Prize. "I think it could be a nice business."

That lab-size operation now primarily consists of a small vacuum tube, lasers, an ultra-cold atom chip and a host of rubidium atoms. What normally was contained atop a 2-foot by 4-foot table or larger, ColdQuanta reduced to a 10-inch by 8-inch by-4-inch unit.

By using lasers and the vacuum to help cool the atoms to within a millionth degree of absolute zero, they essentially collapse into each other forming a quantum state and what appears to be one atom.

From there, scientists can measure how the atoms respond in various experiments easier than if the atoms moved at normal speed - or even faster than they do using ColdQuanta's technology.

To determine gravitational force, researchers can let the atoms fall to see how fast they fall. Knowing that could help researchers determine the gravitational force at various elevations.

And to help with navigation, scientists can measure how the atoms in the vacuum tube respond when turning left or right.

The hard part, though, is creating a vacuum so small and getting the ultra-cold atoms in it, Kunz said. The smaller the instrument is, the more precise all the components and the science behind them must be, he said.

But that's the feat ColdQuanta is tackling. The company, which spun out of CU, is working to create a device small enough to fit on airplanes, in submarines and for use in other small-area applications.

"This will be very useful for precision instrumentation," he said.

For instance, instead of using a laser to navigate or determine acceleration or rotation, the device would be used to create very accurate gyroscopes.

Currently, most gyroscopes are laser-based and measure differences in light, Kunz said. But while those are accurate, there is an increased degree of deviation over time or distance. Ultra-cold atom technology would help reduce or eliminate that deviation.

"What the laser does with light we are doing with gas - with atoms," he said.

In addition to equity from private investors and a $100,000 proof of concept investment from CU, the company has an Air Force and a Navy contract.

Kunz said ColdQuanta was awarded a phase 1 and phase 2 Air Force contract to design better vacuums, better parts and other upgrades to its current version. The phase 1 Navy contract, which began in May, is to design a Navy-specific version.

For now, the company is marketing itself to universities, federal labs and the U.S. Department of Defense, and it has sold three of its systems since December 2008.

While he wouldn't disclose all three buyers, he said one is the University of Rochester, one is an aerospace company and the other is a federal research lab. Each sells for about $45,000, and once the company produces the smaller, shoebox-size version, Kunz anticipates it selling for more than $100,000.

He anticipates having a complete system in two to four years.

"We know that this is not going to happen overnight," he said.