JQI Researchers Shed New Light on Atomic ‘Wave Function’ | NIST

High-res technique improves ability to measure a quantum system’s essential information.

The team has used laser light and optics to construct an image of an atomic wave function (shown in purple). The graphic is an artistic depiction of this process, showing a microscope objective trained on atoms (spheres) suspended in an optical lattice (tall white waves). The team's technique reveals information about an atomic wave function in unprecedented detail. Credit: E. Edwards/Joint Quantum Institute

NIST NEWS, May 16, 2019

Physicists have demonstrated a new way to obtain the essential details that describe an isolated quantum system, such as a gas of atoms, through direct observation. The new method gives information about the likelihood of finding atoms at specific locations in the system with unprecedented spatial resolution. With this technique, scientists can obtain details on a scale of tens of nanometers—smaller than the width of a virus.

Source: JQI Researchers Shed New Light on Atomic ‘Wave Function’ | NIST