Thomas Young, a British scientist, performed the famous "double slit"
experiment in 1801, demonstrating that light behaved like a wave by passing
through two slits in a material at the same time and interfering in
predictable ways when they recombined.
The experiment has been replicated since that ground-breaking occasion to
show electromagnetic radiation exhibits both wave-like and particle-like
properties. To put it another way, depending on how it is measured, light
may behave in two different ways, like marbles rolling down a slope or like
ripples in a pond.
Additionally, not just photons behave in this manner. Scientists have
demonstrated that electrons, neutrons, and whole atoms behave in the same
way using comparable settings, proving a fundamental principle of quantum
physics as a theory based on chance.
Modern modifications have been made to Young's experiment by scientists. To
investigate whether a wave of light may interfere with its own past and
future, they employed "time slits" made by quick changes in the reflectance
of a material in place of a pair of slits separated in space.
Riccardo Sapienza, a physicist from Imperial College London in the UK,
believes that the experiment "reveals more about the fundamental nature of
light and serves as a stepping stone to creating the ultimate materials that
can minutely control light in both space and time."
Indium tin oxide, a substance used in smartphone screens, was applied in a
thin layer by Sapienza and his associates. A single wave of light can
interfere with itself by traveling along several courses in time as a result
of the laser pulses' alteration of the material's reflectance.
Due to the altered frequency of the light caused by the temporal
variations, unique colors, rather than variations in brightness, were
produced when the light hit the material. The interference pattern was
examined by the scientists in order to draw conclusions concerning the
wave-like nature of the light.
According to physicist John Pendry of Imperial College London, "The double
time slits experiment opens the door to a completely new spectroscopy
capable of resolving the temporal structure of a light pulse."
Interestingly, the slits opened up between one and ten femtoseconds faster
than the researchers anticipated. (quadrillionths of a second). The fact
that the experiment exceeded the theoretical modeling shows that some of
that modeling needs to be reexamined since materials may not interact with
light exactly as scientists had previously believed they would. (when
intensity or speed changes, for example).
This kind of material, which can alter its response to light in incredibly
brief bursts, may be valuable for creating new technologies and unlocking
the secrets of quantum physics.
The study of phenomena like black holes will benefit from it even on the
greatest scales. The team's next goal is to apply its "time twist" to the
atomic crystal, a material in which atoms are arranged in a precise pattern
that might hasten the development of electronics.
According to physicist Stefan Maier of Imperial College London, "the idea
of time crystals has the potential to lead to ultrafast, parallelized
optical switches."
The research has been published in
Nature Physics.
