Credit: Paul Scherrer Institute/Mahir Dzambegovic
Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have succeeded for the first time in looking inside materials using the method of transient grating spectroscopy with ultrafast X-rays at SwissFEL. The experiment at PSI is a milestone in observing processes in the world of atoms. The researchers are publishing their research results today in the journal
Nature Photonics.
The structures on microchips are becoming ever tinier; hard disks write entire encyclopedias on magnetic disks the size of a fingernail. Many technologies are currently breaking through the boundaries of classical physics. But in the nanoworld, other laws apply - those of quantum physics. And there are still many unanswered questions: How does heat actually travel through a semiconductor material at the nanoscale? What exactly happens when individual bits are magnetised in a computer hard disk, and how fast can we write? There are still no answers to these and many more questions mainly because current experimental techniques cannot look deeply and precisely enough into the materials and because some processes take place far too quickly for conventional experimental methods. But if we want to push ahead with technical miniaturisation, we need to understand such phenomena at the atomic level