Caltech Scientists Film Photons With Electrons 46
al0ha writes "Techniques recently invented by researchers at the California Institute of Technology which allow the real-time, real-space visualization of fleeting changes in the structure of nanoscale matter have been used to image the evanescent electrical fields produced by the interaction of electrons and photons, and to track changes in atomic-scale structures."
This is what quantum computing needs. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is actually quite applicable to quantum computing. We are getting to the point where we can define the qubits, but have trouble measuring the photon emissions that indicate the result of the computation. This will allow us to finally measure what amounts to the result of the quantum calculation. It's been a long time in coming, but this will finally allow us to make some significant strides towards commercializing quantum computing.
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You know, I've seen more 'this is important to quantum computing!@$!!@!' in the last ten years, its like Duke Nukem Forever, Quantum Edition.
Okay, so this may help solve one problem, what about the fact that quantum computing has about 3 to 4 billion other issues that are 'just around the corner'.
I'm confident that its more likely that I'll see a stable, bug and exploit free version of Windows, from MS, under a BSD license, with no charge, in my life time than it is that my children will see a working quant
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Well, there are working quantum computers. They successfully factor the number 15. The problem is, normal computers are already quite efficient at factorizing 15. As are elementary school students. :-)
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its more likely that I'll see a stable, bug and exploit free version of Windows, from MS, under a BSD license, with no charge, in my life time
You'd just need to go back in time and influence Bill Gates to the Open Source ideals.
Time travel - how hard can it be?
quantum computing has about 3 to 4 billion other issues that are 'just around the corner'.
Compared to time travel, which merely has a few million issues.
Re:This is what quantum computing needs. (Score:5, Interesting)
You may be more well-versed in the field than I am, but I don't see it. For a quantum computer you need to: 1) prepare a set of quantum states, 2) allow them to interact in a controllable manner, 3) read the result. The states must not interact with the environment throughout. Some q-bit candidates are: photons, trapped ions, trapped neutral atoms, ensembles of atoms, quantum dots, super-conducting circuits. Each has some advantages and some disadvantages but none can perform all of the steps easily while preserving the quantum state.
Some qubits can be easily written into others, some can't. The article does not suggest a protocol for reading the state of one qubit into another or even discuss prepared quantum states. If I've missed it, please enlighten me, but some experiments in quantum physics really are done without quantum computing as the goal.
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Interesting, but not for actual quantum computing (Score:3, Informative)
Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't see that coming.
(C'mon! It's funny! Photons! Femtoseconds! Ahh.. fergetaboutit.)
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:4, Funny)
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Ah c'mon
It was just his wa've being particle joke
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Videos or it didn't happen! (Score:4, Insightful)
There are two tiny pictures there, but no videos, and no links other than to another press release which also doesn't have videos.
Am I just not looking hard enough?
Re:Videos or it didn't happen! (Score:5, Funny)
Am I just not looking hard enough?
Try squinting. It's all so very small scale.
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There are two tiny pictures there, but no videos, and no links other than to another press release which also doesn't have videos.
Am I just not looking hard enough?
The videos and links are there, but every time you look for them, you change the reality of their existence.
I suggest blindly clicking around the page until you hear the video playing.
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observe fundamental chemical reactions occurring at the timescale of the femtosecond (one-millionth of a billionth of a second). The work "captured atoms and molecules in motion,"
It was a video, but it only lasted a femtosecond (and if this was Fark I'd say something about your mother here...).
not really the same... (Score:5, Informative)
The photo-electric effect is when electrons are released from a material when they absorb energy from photons. When the energy of the photons isn't above the threshold energy of the material, you get nothing. Also the energy of the emitted electrons doesn't depend on the intensity of the light.
This new technique called PINEM (photon-induced near-field electron microscopy), is used to image the "glow" (i.e., photon emissions) that is emitted by objects that have been excited by femto-second laser pulses using short pulses of electron beams. The image of the object glow is formed by measuring the energy of the scatterred short electron beam.
So in PINEM we are measuring a photons field using an electron pulse in a way where the electrons have a scatter function and different electron energies (think of this as an "analog" 4-d picture of the photon field), in the PE-effect, we are getting some number of electrons of a fixed energy which we can count (think of this like a "geiger counter" measurement of the incident photon field on the material).
Also since you are measuring a field and not the material, in the PE-effect, the material has to absorb the photon and emit (non-coherently) at it's electron work function energy. If the absorbtion ability and/or the energy disparity beween the photons and the work function is large, PE-effect doesn't even give you anything.
As a not very good analogy to think about, with PINEM, you can effectively take a "flash" picture (the flash is the femto-second laser pulse) of the photon emmission field which doesn't disturb the material that much. With any imaging technique that tried to use the PE effect, you'd have to illumiate the material with a photon field (over time and with different intensities) which wouldn't allow you to see anything. This would be like taking a picture with no shutter over a long period of time and imaging them with a binary threshold (kinda-like how old fax machines scanned pictures before dithering). Very blurry (because of the time averaging of the illumiation to get electrons emitted), and very uninteresting (because of the single energy level, uncorrelated nature of the electron emmission from the PE-effect). As another silly analogy, PE-effect is like hearing the alarm of water going above a dam, where PINEM is like looking at the a 3-d movie of the water-level behind the dam even if the water level didn't go above the dam.
Saying this is "old news" is like saying that the transistor was old news, because we discovered lightning a long time ago. ;^)
Film electrons with photons (Score:2, Offtopic)
and you're using a very high resolution camera.
Film photons with electrons, and its another confusing /. title.
I love using electrons to visualise photos (Score:2)
I own a camera you see.
If I didn't know any better.. (Score:1)
WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
It's Friday, I'm drunk, but what the FUCK?! I can't grasp..
Fuck. CalTech. Guess them nerds do know what they're doing.
I met nerds from CalTech and MIT. MIT nerds got nothing on CalTech nerds. When it comes to physics, I'd go with CalTech nerds. p. The nerd from my Ivy League school just don't measure up, including me...
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I doubt there are many 'nerds' that you do measure up to.
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Are you insinuating that he may be in reasonable physical condition?
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
Fuck you mods. Seriously. Ivy League physics depts don't measure up to CalTech and MIT.
Ok, that probably is irrelevant to this story, but fuck, when did relevancy ever mattered here?
That's right. Fuck you. Fuck all'o you. I'm screwing a married theatre major on the side.
OK. Screw you losers.
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lol I'd mod you up if I had the points man, just for drunken /. posting.
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There are people who post while sober?!? Oh no.
You must be new here. 1. drink vigourously 2. post on /.
3. sober up
4. ...
5. profit!
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Hint: it may be more fun to use the front (or the back) of her.
Heh (Score:2)
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It had the tag and didn't have the tag until you looked at it.
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Heisenberg was supposed to be here, but he couldn't make the commute. We photoshoped in Schroedinger and his cat Sy. He is waving at you. Is that Duke Nucleon Forever he is playing? What is that electron doing in this picture? Bremsstrahlung.
Protons with electrons? I can see the tabloids now (Score:1, Offtopic)
Electro? (Score:2, Insightful)
If we image things with photons, we call it a photo. Since they imaged the photons with electrons, should their image then called an electro?
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Electrograph, possibly.
I heard that the first scientist that looked at it (Score:1, Offtopic)
Moving pictures of the 4D microscope (Score:2, Informative)