Physicists from the French National Research Center and the École Supérieure Pedagogique in Paris have filmed the process of atoms turning into quantum waves for the first time. The study was published on: portal scientific materials arXiv.
The image shows white dots of lithium atoms surrounded by blurry red areas called wave packets.
The idea that atoms and other quantum objects have simultaneously wave and particle properties was first put forward a century ago by French physicist Louis de Broglie.
In 1926, the hypothesis was developed by de Broglie’s Austrian colleague Erwin Schrödinger, who formulated one of the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics. According to the Schrödinger equation, atoms exist in space as wave-like probability packets that break up into individual particles when observed.
In 2024, scientists managed to visualize this strange feature of the quantum world and showed how an object can be in two opposite states at the same time.
To capture this fuzzy duality, physicists first cooled lithium atoms to temperatures near absolute zero by bombarding them with photons from a laser to destroy their momentum. After the atoms cooled, the new lasers captured them in individual packets into an optical lattice.
As the atoms cooled and trapped, the researchers periodically closed and opened the optical lattice, expanding the atoms from the confined particle-like state to the wave-like state and back again.
The microscope’s camera recorded the light emitted as atoms grew and contracted between each state, creating an image of the particles’ sharp points within the wavy dots indicated by the Schrödinger equation.
According to scientists, they plan to use their invention to study atomic systems and solve fundamental questions in physics.
Physicists before managed A quantum crystal first predicted 90 years ago has been created.