Scientists have re-investigated a 60-year-old idea by an American physicist and provided new insights into the quantum world. At low temperatures, matter, which is made up of atoms and particles, can be made to behave much like light; that is, light behaves the same way all waves do. In its interaction with matter, light can behave like it is composed of particles that don’t go around objects but instead travel in a straight line.
In the Quantum Information Lab at the University, researchers took this one step further and added an ultra-cold atom experiment to the mix. With the aid of high-tech lasers, they manipulated these ultra-cold atoms until they were so cold that their wave behavior became visible to the eye.
They have created customized patterns of obstacles to stop the waves, and when they take a picture, they can find out where these atoms are. This way, they can see what exactly is required to get our quantum-mechanical waves to reflect off obstacles, and why the waves do not get in, they said.