Light is captured as a wave AND a particle at the same time in first ever photograph

[reine02]

The above image is what scientists say is the first ever snapshot of light behaving as a particle and a wave. The bottom 'slice' of the image shows the particles, while the top image shows light as a wave

The technique for capturing the image could be used to help open up new areas of superfast computers that exploit the quantum states of materials.

He said: 'This experiment demonstrates that, for the first time ever, we can film quantum mechanics - and its paradoxical nature - directly.

'Being able to image and control quantum phenomena at the nanometer scale like this opens up a new route towards quantum computing.'


In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the research team conducted an experiment and then used electrons to image the light.

By firing a pulse of laser light at a tiny metal wire suspended on graphene, this added energy to the particle wire and caused them to vibrate.


Light then traveled along the wire in two possible directions. When the waves travelling in opposite directions meet each other they form a new 'standing wave' of light.

By then firing a stream of electrons close to the nanowire, they were able to image this wave in an ultrafast microscope due to the way the electrons sped up or slowed down.

Dr Carbone said that the resulting image produces a fingerprint of the wave-nature of light while also simultaneously demonstrating that it is a particle too.

The electrons pass close to the standing wave of light, they hit the photons it contains, again affecting the resulting image.