Electron filmed in motion for the first time

[Warpy]

Scientists have filmed an electron in motion for the first time, using a new technique that will allow researchers to study the tiny particle's movements directly.
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Extremely short flashes of light are necessary to capture an electron in motion. A technology developed within the last few years can generate short pulses of intense laser light, called attosecond pulses, to get the job done.
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"It takes about 150 attoseconds for an electron to circle the nucleus of an atom. An attosecond is 10-18 {ten to the minus eighteenth} seconds long, or, expressed in another way: an attosecond is related to a second as a second is related to the age of the universe," said Johan Mauritsson of Lund University in Sweden.

More plus short video at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23336318/

[jeff30997]

1. Wow,that is so cool!

Thanks for the infos Warpy.

[arendt]

2. Impressive. n/t

[bunkerbuster1]

3. Oh, come on now--a "quantum stroboscope?"

Driven by dilithium crystals? This is an elaborate hoax, right?

seriously, I've kinda waited my whole life to see something as amazing as this, forgive me if I'm skeptical that this isn't some kind of "enhanced visualization" thing that isn't a real life image...

[Warpy]

4. Skepticism is never a bad idea

and this Sunday supplement level article leaves too much out to accept it at face value.

However, the concept was interesting enough to post.

[bunkerbuster1]

6. Abso-tively right to post about this

It's so fascinating, I'm almost afraid to believe it's true. Thanks, though, for bringing it to my attention.

[FogerRox]

8. I quickly googled this link

Electron Stroboscope

To capture an unblurred image of a hummingbird, you can flash a strobe light at the same frequency as its fluttering wings. A similar "stroboscope" method uses sub-femtosecond light pulses synchronized with an oscillating laser field to repeatedly ionize electrons at the same moment in the laser's cycle and get clean images.

Researchers have recorded snapshots of electron motion at close to the particle's own natural timescale, which is less than a femtosecond (10-15 seconds). The experiment combines ultrashort light pulses with steady laser light to extract an electron from an atom in a controlled way. With control over the precise moment of extraction, the team was able to cleanly image the electron's quantum state, as they describe in the 22 February Physical Review Letters. This technique could help researchers probe electron-atom interactions in more detail and begin using electrons to observe atoms in the poorly-understood state following ionization.


Source.

[caraher]

13. Not at all...

though these folks are overclaiming - this sort of thing has been done for over a decade using Rydberg states, where the electron dynamics are much slower (picosecond - trillionth of a second - time scales) than in atomic ground states (attosecond time scales, or about a million times faster than a picosecond).

It's not at all true that they're capturing this "on film." That's sheer nonsense. What they're doing is reconstructing the result of thousands or millions of laser shots and reconstructing the electron probability distribution by computer. The research group I was a member of in grad school did very similar work, measuring both phase and amplitude of an electron's wavefunction (see this Physical Review Focus article). And we made animations of these, too.

[comradebillyboy]

5. great stuff, I check my physics geek sites to get some

more detailed info

[FogerRox]

7. You know I was going to do that, but

I decided it would easy to animate it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmp1cg3-WDY

[lonestarnot]

14. Way cool Roger Fox!

[FogerRox]

9. KnR just on "CooL" points alone.

[Orsino]

10. "I'm ready for my close-up, Dr. Heisenberg." n/t

[CGowen]

11. congrats n/t

[FogerRox]

12. I cross posted this @ talk-polywell

http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?p=3796#3796

[lonestarnot]

15. Shoot! All the video is is darkness now.

[Wilms]

16. I searched "Electron in Motion" on youtube.

There's a number of links there.

http://youtube.com/results?search_query=Electron+in+Motion&search_type=

[Nihil]

17. Damn ...

... the electron escaped!

:crazy: