Scientists have announced the creation of a new method that may play a “great” role in the field of atomic chemistry and the development of quantum computing, related to the study of a fundamental property of the electron.
“We study these electrons with a technique that goes back 70 or 80 years, which is electron spin resonance spectroscopy,” said Patrice Berthier, a physicist at the Commission for Atomic and Alternative Energy and a co-author of the study, which was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
This technique, which is widely used in many fields such as chemistry, biology, materials science and food control, is not affected quickly, so it requires a large number of molecules or atoms containing these unpaired electrons to detect any signal, which prevents its application to microscopic samples.
The Quantronique team of the Commission for Atomic Energy and Alternative Energy Atomic Energy devised a new way to monitor the electron spin of a single electron, i.e. to isolate “individual atoms and spin of a single electron, which was previously impossible,” according to Berthier.
With this technology called “electronic spin” the electron acts as a small magnet. But this electron should be in a single orbit around the nucleus of the atom, while in matter electrons are usually in orbit in pairs, which cancels the effect of their magnetization.
Introducing defects or impurities into the material can cause individual electrons to appear, similar to atoms that pore free radicals such as those associated with cell aging or a large number of chemical reactions.
The principle of the new technique is to move an atom containing a single electron through a microwave impulse. When the electron returns to its original state, it releases energy in the form of a microwave photon, which is a small amount of light. No commercial detector is able to detect such a weak signal, while the device devised by the UNHCR team is able to do so.
The new observational method contributes to at least two areas of research: chemistry and quantum computing.
In chemistry, it “may allow much more accurate observation of the properties of matter around an atom,” with implications for molecular analysis, to study the composition of a molecule and the bonds between the atoms that make it up.
Berthier notes that this technique is “initially applicable to all atoms or molecules that contain unpaired electrons,” as well as potentially being used to study individual molecules or proteins.
The atom used in the experiment, the erbium ion, has a unique property in quantum computing. Its magnetic moment maintains its quantum properties for a remarkable period of about three milliseconds… which is far too long in quantum computing for a similar atom to be used as a “qubit spin”.
The physicist notes that the microwave photon detector “has a bright future”, as its rapid sensitivity allows it to detect signals that are “never detected”.
It can be used in experiments aimed at discovering dark matter, a theoretical component of matter in the universe, as similar research requires a detector of microwave photons that shows great ability to be affected quickly.
