![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Two-types-of-atoms-bosons-on-the-left-exhibit-bunching-while-the-fermions-on-the-right-display-anti-.jpeg\")
Two types of atoms, bosons on the left exhibit bunching while the fermions on the right display anti-bunching \u2013 Credit: Sampson Wilcox \/ MIT<\/p>\n Two types of atoms, bosons on the left exhibit bunching while the fermions on the right display anti-bunching \u2013 Credit: Sampson Wilcox \/ MIT<\/p>\n
MIT physicists have captured the first images of individual atoms freely interacting in space. The pictures reveal correlations among the \u201cfree-range\u201d particles that until now were predicted but never directly observed. Their findings will help scientists visualize never-before-seen quantum phenomena in real space.<\/p>\n
The images were taken using a technique developed by the team that allows a cloud of atoms to move and interact freely until a lattice of light is turned on which briefly freezes the atoms in their tracks. Finely tuned lasers briefly illuminate the suspended atoms, creating a picture of their positions before the atoms naturally dissipate.<\/p>\n
The physicists sought to compare different types of atoms, including \u201cbosons,\u201d which bunched up in a quantum phenomenon to form a wave. They also captured atoms known as \u201cfermions\u201d in route to pairing-up in free space \u2014 a key mechanism that enables superconductivity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are able to see single atoms in these interesting clouds of atoms and what they are doing in relation to each other, which is beautiful,\u201d says Martin Zwierlein, a Physics Professor at MIT.<\/p>\n
Never Seen Before<\/p>\n
A single atom is about one-tenth of a nanometer in diameter, which is one-millionth of the thickness of a strand of human hair. Unlike hair, atoms behave and interact according to the rules of quantum mechanics; it is their quantum nature that makes atoms difficult to understand. For example, we cannot simultaneously know precisely where an atom is and how fast it is moving.<\/p>\n
Current imaging techniques only allowed you to see the overall shape and structure of a cloud of atoms\u2014like looking at a cloud in the sky, but not being able to see the individual droplets making up the cloud.<\/p>\n
RELATED BREAKTHROUGH:<\/strong> New Class of Matter Behaves Like a Solid and a Granule in Way Never Seen Before<\/a><\/p>\n The new technique is called \u201catom-resolved microscopy\u201d and involves first corralling a cloud of atoms in a loose trap formed by a laser beam, then flashing light that freezes the atoms in their positions, while a second laser illuminates the suspended atoms, revealing their individual positions.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the first time we do it in-situ, where we can suddenly freeze the motion of the atoms when they\u2019re strongly interacting, and see them, one after the other,\u201d Zwierlein told MIT News.<\/a> \u201cThat\u2019s what makes this technique more powerful than what was done before.\u201d<\/p>\n Bunches and pairs<\/p>\n The team applied the imaging technique to directly observe interactions among both bosons and fermions. Photons are an example of a boson, while electrons are a type of fermion. Atoms can be bosons or fermions, depending on their total spin, which is determined by whether the total number of their protons, neutrons, and electrons is even or odd. In general, bosons attract, whereas fermions repel.<\/p>\n Zwierlein and his colleagues first imaged a cloud of bosons made up of sodium atoms. At low temperatures, a cloud of bosons forms what\u2019s known as a Bose-Einstein condensate \u2014 a state of matter where all bosons share one and the same quantum state. MIT\u2019s Ketterle was one of the first to produce a Bose-Einstein condensate, of sodium atoms, for which he shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics.<\/p>\n Zwierlein\u2019s group, which published their findings<\/a> in the journal Physical Review Letters,\u00a0now is able to image the individual sodium atoms within the cloud, to observe their quantum interactions. It has long been predicted that bosons should \u201cbunch\u201d together, having an increased probability to be near each other. This bunching is a direct consequence of their ability to share the same quantum mechanical wave\u2014a wave-like character first predicted by physicist Louis de Broglie, which sparked the beginning of modern quantum mechanics.<\/p>\n