Nobel Prize for methods of measuring quantum particles
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This years physics Nobel Prize winners have both invented and developed methods of controlling and measuring single quantum particles. Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland have made the particles jump through hoops in a way previously thought impossible.
Haroche and Wineland’s experiments have opened the door to direct observation and manipulation of single quantum particles without destroying them. In their quantum optics research they have studied how light interacts with materials at a microscopical level.
‘The laureates have managed to manipulate and control single atoms and have been able to measure how they interact with light particles. It is a dream fulfilled’, says Olga Botner, professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Uppsala University and member of the Nobel committee for physics.
‘In the early years of quantum mechanics it was thought impossible to study single quantum particles; instead you had to use thought experiments. Now these two gentlemen have shown that it is indeed possible, you can handle and manipulate single quantum particles. It is a great breakthrough in fundamental physics.’
When it comes to single light or material particles the laws of quantum physics begin to apply instead of the classical laws of physics. This transition from quantum physics to classical physics has now become possible to study closer.
This years Nobel laureates and their research groups have succeeded in measuring extremely fragile quantum states in the laboratory using cleverly devised instruments. Their methods have a lot in common. David Wineland traps electrically charged atoms, ions, and measures and controls them using light, i.e. photons. Serge Haroche does the opposite – he traps photons and measures and controls them using atoms sent through the trap.
There are also interesting fields of application. Science has now taken the very first steps towards a new type of super-fast computers based on quantum physics. The experiments have also led to extremely precise optical clocks which later on could become the new time standard, over a hundred times more precise than today’s atomic clocks.
Facts/Nobel prize winners in physics
Serge Haroce is professor at Collège de France and Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, France. David J Wineland is professor at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and University of Colorado Boulder in the US.
Annica Hulth