Physicists captured the first images of individual atoms freely interacting in space. The pictures reveal correlations among the 'free-range' particles that until now were predicted but never directly observed.
Washington Dc [US], May 8
(ANI): Physicists captured the first images of individual atoms freely
interacting in space. The pictures reveal correlations among the 'free-range'
particles that until now were predicted but never directly observed.
MIT physicists have captured the first images of individual atoms
freely interacting in space.
Their findings, appearing in the journal Physical Review Letters, will help
scientists visualize never-before-seen quantum phenomena in real space.
The images were
taken using a technique developed by the team that first allows a cloud of
atoms to move and interact freely.
The researchers then turn on a lattice of light that briefly
freezes the atoms in their tracks, and apply finely tuned lasers to quickly
illuminate the suspended atoms, creating a picture of their positions before
the atoms naturally dissipate.
The physicists
applied the technique to visualize clouds of different types of atoms, and
snapped a number of imaging firsts. The researchers directly observed atoms
known as "bosons," which bunched up in a quantum phenomenon to form a
wave.
They also captured atoms known as "fermions" in the act
of pairing up in free space -- a key mechanism that enables superconductivity.
"We are able to see single atoms in these interesting clouds of atoms and
what they are doing in relation to each other, which is beautiful," says
Martin Zwierlein, the Thomas A. Frank Professor of Physics at MIT.
In the same journal issue, two other groups report using similar
imaging techniques, including a team led by Nobel laureate Wolfgang Ketterle,
the John D MacArthur Professor of Physics at MIT. Ketterle's group visualized
enhanced pair correlations among bosons, while the other group, from Ecole
Normale Superieure in Paris, led by Tarik Yefsah, a former postdoc in
Zwierlein's lab, imaged a cloud of noninteracting fermions.
The study by Zwierlein and his colleagues is co-authored by MIT
graduate students Ruixiao Yao, Sungjae Chi, and Mingxuan Wang, and MIT
assistant professor of physics Richard Fletcher.
"These techniques allow you to see the overall shape and
structure of a cloud of atoms, but not the individual atoms themselves,"
Zwierlein notes. "It's like seeing a cloud in the sky, but not the
individual water molecules that make up the cloud."
He and his colleagues took a very different
approach in order to directly image atoms interacting in free space. Their
technique, called "atom-resolved microscopy," involves first
corralling a cloud of atoms in a loose trap formed by a laser beam. (ANI)
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