Illinois Experiment Localizes 3D Matter Waves

Scientists from University of Illinois have successfully localized 3D matter waves- a concept which was impossible to achieve for last five decades since its origin.  The researchers have also deeply studied the effect of imperfections in the propagating medium which holds the key for 3D localization of matter waves.

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The green balloons represent disordered barriers that localize the sound of the trumpet at its source | Image Credit: News Bureau Illinois

The experiment was conducted under the guidance of Brian DeMarco, a professor of Physics at University of Illinois. The research was funded by DARPA, Office of Naval Research and National Science Foundation. Explaining the effect, Prof. DeMarco feels that the effect is like a musician blowing a trumpet in a concert hall. If the concert hall has a large number of obstacles for travelling sound, situation may arise that there is a destructive interference of the sound waves. So even if the person blows trumpet very hard, the concert hall remains silent. The same effect was studied by the group but for Quantum matter waves.

In the practical demonstration of this effect, researchers tried to simulate electrons in the propagating medium i.e.; metal while they used ultra-cold electrons in the disordered LASER beam. The LASER beam helped understand the theory of Anderson Localization because they could achieve complete 3D localization of matter waves.

With the use of LASER in this experiment it was also easier to calculate the 'mobility edge' or the amount of energy which was required to propagate unhindered through the irregularities of the metal. The particles which have low mobility edge hence cannot penetrate through the medium.

The DeMarco group has only tested the localization theory, the commercial and real life applications are still waiting to be tapped. The paper exhibiting this work titled #-Link-Snipped-# was published in Oct 7 issue of Journal Science.