Scientists Control Atoms With Light and It Could Change Chemistry and Physics Forever

By Politecnico di Milano December 27, 2024

Collected at: https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-control-atoms-with-light-and-it-could-change-chemistry-and-physics-forever/

Scientists have successfully manipulated quantum systems with extreme ultraviolet light pulses, achieving precise control of atomic structures and quantum states.

This method, demonstrated at Italy’s Elettra Synchrotron, could revolutionize chemical processes and pharmaceutical manufacturing by allowing light to direct chemical reactions.

Breakthrough in Quantum Mechanics

Scientists have achieved a groundbreaking milestone in quantum mechanics by manipulating the temporal evolution of a quantum system using extreme ultraviolet (XUV) light pulses. This remarkable breakthrough was led by Prof. Lukas Bruder from the University of Freiburg, in collaboration with 14 international research institutions, including the Politecnico di Milano, the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnologies of the National Research Council of Milan (CNR-IFN), the Institute of Materials Workshop of the National Research Council of Trieste (CNR-IOM), the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), the National Laboratories of Frascati (Rome), and the Elettra Synchrotron in Trieste.

The team demonstrated that matter can be controlled at the atomic level by harnessing peculiar properties of XUV light. Their experiment, published in the journal Nature, enabled precise manipulation of quantum states and chemical properties of matter on ultrafast time scales. This technique was successfully tested on helium atoms, where researchers adjusted electronic energy levels and measured the resulting electron motion with unprecedented accuracy.

Advanced Techniques in Atom Manipulation

The international research team successfully achieved the challenging goal of sculpting the amplitude, phase, and polarization of ultrashort pulses in the XUV in order to control the behavior of atoms. This level of control enabled the enhancement of selected quantum processes while suppressing others. The experiments were conducted at the FERMI free-electron laser at Elettra Synchrotron in Trieste, one of Italy’s leading research centers.

“With this study, we have extended the so-called coherent control to the spectral regions of XUV and of X-rays. Coherent control involves using light to manipulate the evolution of chemical reactions and direct them toward desired chemical products,” explains Dr. Cristian Manzoni of CNR-IFN.

Potential Applications in Chemical Reactions

“This process, which is intrinsically a consequence of quantum physics, could allow us to use light as a chemical reagent to control reaction efficiency. This would enable the efficient production of highly specialized molecules for applications such as pharmaceuticals,” concludes Prof. Giulio Cerullo from the Physics Department of Politecnico di Milano, one of the co-authors of the publication.

Reference: “Strong-field quantum control in the extreme ultraviolet domain using pulse shaping” by Fabian Richter, Ulf Saalmann, Enrico Allaria, Matthias Wollenhaupt, Benedetto Ardini, Alexander Brynes, Carlo Callegari, Giulio Cerullo, Miltcho Danailov, Alexander Demidovich, Katrin Dulitz, Raimund Feifel, Michele Di Fraia, Sarang Dev Ganeshamandiram, Luca Giannessi, Nicolai Gölz, Sebastian Hartweg, Bernd von Issendorff, Tim Laarmann, Friedemann Landmesser, Yilin Li, Michele Manfredda, Cristian Manzoni, Moritz Michelbach, Arne Morlok, Marcel Mudrich, Aaron Ngai, Ivaylo Nikolov, Nitish Pal, Fabian Pannek, Giuseppe Penco, Oksana Plekan, Kevin C. Prince, Giuseppe Sansone, Alberto Simoncig, Frank Stienkemeier, Richard James Squibb, Peter Susnjar, Mauro Trovo, Daniel Uhl, Brendan Wouterlood, Marco Zangrando and Lukas Bruder, 11 December 2024, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08209-y