- That The classic double slit experience with a spatial notch He explained that particles are waves that can cancel or reinforce one another.
- Now, for the first time, physicists are doing it Double slit experience with time slots Implemented instead of a spatial digit
- A beam of light passed through the time slot twice This creates interference in the frequency spectrum
For the first time, physicists conducted a double slit experiment with a temporal slit instead of a spatial slit. The spread of the frequency of the light beam causes overlap in the color spectrum.
London, England). In physics, the double slit experiment with two spatial slits is one of the most famous. A beam of atoms, photons or electrons is directed into the gap between the two slits. Then the detector behind the aperture sees the opening with two gaps of dark and light lines, indicating that the particle is a wave that can be canceled or amplified.
physique Imperial College London He was now, for the first time, conducting a double slit experiment in time and not space. According to what was published in a special magazine Natural Physics A ray of light does not pass through two adjacent slits, but through a slit that opens and closes in a few hundred femtoseconds. This results in two slots separated by time.
Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) Semiconductor Material.
To be able to open and close slits within a few hundred femtoseconds, physicists use indium tin oxide (ITO) semiconductor materials. These materials can change their reflectivity and go from a highly reflective and nearly opaque state to a semi-transparent state by applying energy, for example via short laser pulses.
The scientists first exposed transparent ITO to infrared light with a wavelength of 1,300 nanometers, which was aimed at the material at an angle of incidence of 60 degrees. The detector catches reflected light at an opposite 60 degree angle. Most of the time, only a small amount of radiation is detected because the semiconductor material is transparent. Only during the two short phases, called the slit phase, does the ITO reflect incident radiation.
Enter the color spectrum
In a double slit experiment with a spatial slit, the radiation distribution changes. However, the double slit experiment, now carried out in the time dimension, has changed its frequency, meaning light travels to different wavelengths. So radiation with wide bandwidth hits the detector.
“The test beam was spectrally expanded and displayed new frequencies up to ten bandwidths away from the original carrier frequency.”
Double gaps in the time dimension change the color of the light and produce different colored light waves that interact with each other. Interference amplifies some wavelengths while attenuating or canceling others. This means that there is no pattern of light and dark areas in the detector, but rather a range of frequency oscillations.
This affects the width of the interfering frequency oscillations
“With this, we are performing an interim version of the classic double-beam experiment. A beam of light directed twice through a time slot creates interference in the frequency spectrum.”
According to the measurement, the double time gap changes the overlapping frequency oscillation width. The visible interference band is determined by the shape of the interval.
So our experiments reveal a lot more about the fundamental nature of light. At the same time, it could serve as a starting point for the development of materials that control light in space and time.”
Fisika Alam, doi: 10.1038/s41567-023-01993-w
