Professor Marcel Mayor, a researcher and professor at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the University of Basel, along with other scientists has recorded the interference pattern of individual heavy molecules in real-time.
Every individual molecule fluoresces and becomes part of the interference pattern. Figures a) - e) show the states after 0, 2, 20, 40, and 90 minutes, respectively.
Mayor stated that researchers can improve their knowledge about the atomic world by examining the wave character of every single molecule and the fundamental theory of quantum mechanics. The current experiment has provided several insights into the quantum world.
Mayor partnered with researchers from the University of Vienna and the University of Tel Aviv to perform the experiment. They created fluorescent phtalocyanin molecules made of about 114 atoms and the molecules have a maximum atomic mass of 1298 AMU. After accelerating the created molecules, they were transferred via an optical grating as a slow beam and deposited on the vacuum window at the entrance, where the molecules were triggered by a laser to fluoresce. With a fluorescence microscope, the team examined the formation of the interference pattern for 90 minutes. The system was able to identify every single molecule present in the window with an accuracy of approximately 10 nm.
It is expected that in the future, the system may be utilized to study van-der-Waals interaction among molecules present in the beam and in the grating. In addition, scientists are interested to determine the size and conditions, under which the wave particles behave in a quantum mechanical or classical manner. The findings resulting from the experiment can lead to innovative applications, such as quantum computers.