What does an atom sound like? Apparently it’s a “D-note.”
That’s according to scientists at Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden, who have revealed in a new study that they’ve captured the sound of a single atom.
“We have opened a new door into the quantum world by talking and listening to atoms,” study co-author Per Delsing, a physics professor at the university, said in a written statement. “Our long term goal is to harness quantum physics so that we can benefit from its laws, for example in extremely fast computers.”
For their study, Delsing and his colleagues constructed an artificial atom 0.01 millimeters long and placed it on the end of a superconductingmaterial. Then they guided sound waves along the surface of the material, bounced sound off of the atom, and recorded what came back using a tiny microphone located on the other end of the material.
On the right, an artificial atom generates sound waves consisting of ripples on the surface of a solid material. The sound, known as a surface acoustic wave […]