Physicists Recreate Classic 'Double-Slit' Experiment Using Time Instead of Space
upstart writes:
New research offers an intriguing variation on the famous experiment:
A team of physicists has recreated a classic experiment in particle physics with a dimensional twist, by performing it in time instead of just space. In the process, they showcased the utility of a unique material for future experiments.
The researchers redesigned the double-slit experiment, which was first performed in 1801 and demonstrated a curious trait of light: that it can behave both as a particle and a wave.
The original experiment tested how light moved through space; the recent rendition tested how light would travel if it was only allowed to at specific times. Details of the team's work are published today in Nature Physics.
[...] In the traditional experiment, a beam of light is projected at a barrier, behind which is a photosensitive detector. The barrier has two parallel slits. If you threw ordinary matter at the barrier, they would roughly form the same shape as the slits on the detector. But when light is cast on the slits, it splits into two waves that pass through the barrier and intersect on the other side.
[...] In the new work, the researchers made one big change: They swapped out an ordinary screen with two slits for an indium-tin-oxide film-the same material that is used in modern phone screens. (It's actually a metamaterial, or a material not found in nature, that is engineered to behave a certain way.)
The researchers changed the reflectance of the screen using ultrafast lasers, which only allowed light through at specific times, quadrillionths of a second apart. Basically, they built a quantum tollbooth, using the lasers to create time-dependent slits in the barrier. Even when they only allowed one photon through the screen, the light produced an interference pattern.
Journal Reference:
Tirole, Romain, Vezzoli, Stefano, Galiffi, Emanuele, et al. Double-slit time diffraction at optical frequencies, Nature Physics (DOI: 10.1038/s41567-023-01993-w)
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