One of the most fundamental interactions in physics is that of electrons and light. In an experiment, scientists have now managed to observe what is known as the Kapitza-Dirac effect for the first time in full temporal resolution. This effect was first postulated over 90 years ago, but only now are its finest details coming to light.
It was one of the biggest surprises in the history of science: In the early days of quantum physics around 100 years ago, scholars discovered that the particles which make up our matter always behave like waves. Just as light can scatter at a double slit and produce scattering patterns, electrons can also display interference effects.
In their experiment, the scientists in Frankfurt first of all fired two ultrashort laser pulses from opposite directions at a xenon gas. At the crossover point, these femtosecond pulses -- a femtosecond is a quadrillionth of a second -- produced an ultrastrong light field for fractions of a second. This tore electrons out of the xenon atoms, i.e. it ionized them.
"This opens up many exciting applications in quantum physics. Hopefully, it will help us to track how electrons transform from quantum particles into completely normal particles within the shortest space of time. We are already planning to use it to find out more about the entanglement between different particles that Einstein called 'spooky'," says Dörner. As so often in science, putting long-established theories to the test again and again has been worthwhile here, too.
Quantum Physics Spintronics Optics Inorganic Chemistry Graphene Quantum Computing Materials Science
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