2001 attosecond pulse-train experiment 2026-10-18
Pierre Agostini's experiment illuminated an argon jet with an annular beam. A pinhole removed the annulus; a tungsten-coated mirror relayed harmonics and weak central reference into another argon jet. A magnetic-bottle electron spectrometer used time of flight and microchannel plate detectors. Glass plates varied delay. Reference-on sidebands contrasted with reference-off peaks. Atomic-phase-corrected reconstruction yielded -attosecond bursts.[ref]
Observation of a Train of Attosecond Pulses from High Harmonic Generation by P. M. Paul and others. pp.1690–1691, Figs.1–4 and Table 1
The two-path attosecond phase reconstruction explains the control's purpose: adding the reference opens an interference channel. Its fitted oscillation tests phase relationships under the weak-field and atomic-response model. It does not independently reveal every target phase or an arbitrary nonperiodic optical pulse.
Fermionic atom antibunching 2026-10-14
The 2007 paper Comparison of the Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect for bosons and fermions by T. Jeltes and others compares polarized helium-3 fermions with helium-4 bosons. The chemical atoms occupy a metastable atomic level. Switching off magnetic trapping of neutral atoms releases them onto a microchannel plate detector with a delay-line anode, 63 cm below. Position and arrival-time readouts give three-dimensional pair separations by time-of-flight atom detection. About 1000 clouds per isotope supply histograms; normalization removes the broad cloud shape.
The pair detection correlation dips below one for helium-3 and rises above one for helium-4. The same apparatus, matched temperatures near , nearly identical trapping potentials, negligible interactions, and magnetic field gradient checks of spin polarization support an exchange-statistics interpretation. Finite detector resolution suppresses contrast; trap switch-off and resolution uncertainties limit quantitative agreement. A diverging laser lens deepens the dip, but its aberrations preclude a precise lens-model test. This detects exchange correlations, rather than measuring occupation of one selected spin orbital.[ref]
Comparison of the Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect for bosons and fermions by T. Jeltes and others. pp. 3–7, Methods, Figs. 1–3; supplementary pp. 14–16
Microchannel plate detector 2026-10-14
The experiment above combines a microchannel plate detector with a delay-line anode to record individual atom arrivals. The apparatus is described in the paper's Fig. 1 and Methods.
A molecular nitrogen experiment used a pulsed nozzle and two skimmers. A tube raised the rotational temperature. Opposed vacuum-ultraviolet laser pulses excited selected molecular levels and, about later, selectively ionized excited nitrogen fragments. A microchannel plate detector, phosphor screen and camera recorded radii.[ref]
Accurate measurements of the bond dissociation energies of 14N2, 14N15N and 15N2 by Liya Lu and others. Lu, Jiang and Gao, §2, printed manuscript pp. 2–3: nozzle, tube, pump/probe and imaging readout
The measured squared radii were fitted against molecular excitation energies, referenced to the parent ground state:The intercept at zero radius gave the excited-product threshold; the fitted slope absorbed the detector scale. A wavemeter monitored the excitation source; scanning the probe covered the recoil Doppler shift. Subtracting the atomic excitation energies converted the intercept to ground-product .[ref]
Accurate measurements of the bond dissociation energies of 14N2, 14N15N and 15N2 by Liya Lu and others. §1: image-radius equation; §2: wavemeter and probe scan; §3 and Figure 4: fits; §4: atomic excitation correction
An apertured grounded plate and detector timing rejected faster competing channels. Selecting fragment electronic states distinguished nearby thresholds. Agreement of across isotopes after zero-point energy correction tested consistency. The method still requires correctly assigned levels, adequate near-threshold signal and stable imaging; a signal drop alone can reflect another channel or a barrier.[ref]
Accurate measurements of the bond dissociation energies of 14N2, 14N15N and 15N2 by Liya Lu and others. §2: shielding plate and timing; §3: state-selected channels; §4 and Table 2: isotope consistency and limitations
This measurement determines a state-resolved ground-state dissociation energy. Obtaining a finite-temperature bond-dissociation enthalpy requires the thermal increments above; obtaining a bond potential-well depth requires the zero-point energy correction. The three quantities describe different starting conditions for the same specified separation.