First Ever Image Of “Free Floating” Atoms Snapped By MIT Scientist...Two light systems trap the atoms and snap their photo.

Atoms have been seen clumping up, pairing up, and staying alone thanks to a new technique. Image Credit: Sampson Wilcox Scientists now have a new approach to study never-before-seen quantum phenomena. Physicists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have produced the first images of atoms freely interacting in space, showing correlations that had been predicted in theory but never directly photographed before. The team’s Atom-Resolved Microscopy is done in this way. Atoms are allowed to move about and interact freely. The researchers then turn on a lattice made of light that, for a fraction of a second, freezes the atoms....