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the electron has been photographed.

Comments

  • #2
    mawk
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,738 ✭✭✭mawk


    im... mildly disapointed. I was hoping for something cooler.

    but its still an amazing achievement, especially interesting to note the groupings on the north and south poles


  • #3
    bogwalrus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,454 ✭✭✭bogwalrus


    to be honest i didnt even know what i was looking at. then again i have never looked at anything through a micro scope and the like.

    is the electron lighter than a neutron? and are they like the same things but opposites?


  • #4
    Spear
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Help & Feedback Category Moderators Posts: 25,760 CMod ✭✭✭✭Spear


    bogwalrus wrote: »
    to be honest i didnt even know what i was looking at. then again i have never looked at anything through a micro scope and the like.

    is the electron lighter than a neutron? and are they like the same things but opposites?

    The electrons antiparticle is the positron.


  • #5
    great unwashed
    Closed Accounts Posts: 146 ✭✭great unwashed


    How was it done? Is it more of a film? (mozilla downloaded about 8MB but didn't play much ...) I read some of the article but :eek:

    Was it done with lasers or something? Did they bounce a laser off a gas atom?


  • #6
    bogwalrus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,454 ✭✭✭bogwalrus


    yeah it was a very intense laser that is measured in attoseconds or something. I suppose it was just a really fast laser. the electron was moving from one atom to another and thats when they snapped it. dunno if they used gas but i doubt it as it was an electron they were photographing and gas would have just been in the way with its bigness and all=)


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  • #7
    c0rk3r
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,256 ✭✭✭c0rk3r


    Thats not a photograph its imaging.

    MRI - imaging. camera - photograph. "Dont piss on my back and tell me its raining", pretty appropriate quote.


  • #8
    ga2re2t
    Closed Accounts Posts: 134 ✭✭ga2re2t


    Well hold on now, don't get too carried away. Nobody has actually photographed an electron. What they have done, and it is pretty amazing, is use attosecond laser pulses to create subfemtosecond packets of electrons. These electrons (and not a single electron) then coherently scatter and interfere with one another in a similar fashion to waves. The way I understand it is that they are able to detect this interference using a "velocity map imaging spectrometer", but how exactly that works is a mystery to me.

    The background gas used is argon (Ar) but there is no mention of the pressure used, which is strange, but I assume it's in a very low pressure environment.

    I admit though that I am a bit stumped to what's they're really trying to do. My understanding is that the use of subfemtosecond electron wave packets will be extremely useful in studying molecular structures and dynamics.


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