Upgraded microscope can now watch individual quantum particles in motion
Energy can be carried in a number of ways: by electrons, the particles that underpin all modern electronics, as well as by quasiparticles, the results of different particles interacting with one another at the quantum level. Columbia chemist Milan Delor has been watching these different forms of energy flow with an instrument called stroboSCAT, a unique microscope that uses strobe-like light…
Scientists have developed a new microscope called stroboSCAT, which can now observe individual quantum particles moving through materials. This breakthrough, described in Nature Materials, allows researchers to track both electrons and quasiparticles, which are particles that arise from interactions between other particles at the quantum level.
Traditionally, researchers could only study quasiparticles using transport measurements to track electrical resistance, but this did not provide direct information about these elusive quantum entities. The new stroboSCAT microscope, developed by Milan Delor and his team at Columbia University, overcomes this limitation by using intensity-cycling techniques to distinguish single quantum states from many others.
Delor's team has demonstrated several powerful capabilities of the stroboSCAT microscope. Most notably, they can now isolate single electrons moving through a 2D semiconductor, a significant achievement that eliminates artifacts from many-body interactions. The microscope also enables the observation of interactions among multiple particles with great precision, such as tracking the spatial and temporal evolution of two- or three-particle states.
Through their work, the researchers have successfully mapped how crystal defects shape the electronic environment of a 2D semiconductor and observed how light can induce a phase transition in a superatomic solid. These are long-sought-after capabilities that can now be performed with routine measurements using the stroboSCAT microscope.
The researchers have made the blueprints and software for the stroboSCAT microscope available to the scientific community, enabling other groups to implement the instrument in their own labs. Delor plans to use the latest iteration of the microscope to explore particle interactions that give rise to phenomena such as superconductivity and quasiparticle condensates.
This new technique has the potential to greatly advance our understanding of many-body interactions and correlated transport in a wide range of quantum materials.
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