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Canberra Today 25°/29° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Scientists observe ‘rare’ event

Prof Anatoli Kheifets holds a ball that represents the atomic sphere. Photo by ANU
A RESEARCH team, which includes ANU, has detected electrons outside of their regular orbits, a phenomenon that could be harnessed to develop next-generation electronics based on thin materials and superconductors.

A common image of electrons has them locked in orbitals like planets around the Sun, but the international team of scientists observed electrons momentarily in different, higher energy orbits.

Co-researcher Prof Anatoli Kheifets from ANU says developing a way to detect the phenomenon predicted by quantum theory has taken 30 years.

“Scientists never thought they could observe such a rare event,” he says.

“There is no simple way to look inside a molecule to see what an electron is doing there.”

The international team of researchers was able to take a very precise snapshot of pairs of electrons in the hydrogen molecule.

As part of the experiment, the team used an X-ray beam to knock one of the electrons out of the molecule, which caused its two atoms to separate.

“Because the two electrons in the molecule are entangled, the one that was knocked out carried very precise information about the quantum state of its counterpart,” Prof Kheifets says.

The experiment showed that both electrons in the ground-state orbital jump momentarily to a higher energy level at the same time, which is an example of quantum correlation.

“This kind of correlation between electrons is normally too weak to see, but in certain circumstances can lead to remarkable behaviours such as superconductivity, which underpins high-capacity computer memory,” Prof Kheifets says.

“The process of electron correlation in the hydrogen molecule is very rare and weak. Nevertheless, the sensitivity of the experimental technique was so great that it allowed us to very clearly visualise the pair of the electrons in the act, out of their usual character.”

He says the new method for imaging the entangled electrons could be a major boon for the study of technologically important materials, such as superconductors and thin layered structures.

“With a tighter squeeze put on electrons by miniaturisation, their entanglement plays a great part – it’s the physics of the 21st century,” he says.

The research is published in “Nature Communications” via nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02437-9 

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