Abstract: My talk will cover recent advances in the application of near atomic-resolution single-particle cryoEM for the structural and functional analysis of macromolecules...
Apr14
Free lunches with chips and coherent beams: from Ramsey fringes to integrated circuit inspection
Gabriel Aeppli, ETH Zürich, EPF Lausanne and Paul Scherrer Institut, Switzerland
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Interference between coherent photon pulses separated in time yields the famous Ramsey fringes, which allow the dynamics of objects exposed to the pulses to be characterized with much greater precision than suggested by the Heisenberg uncertainty relation applied to the pulse bandwidth. The same applies for coherent photon beams separated in space, which leads to the construction of images of objects much larger than the wavelength of light, with resolution limited only by photon statistics for high angle scattering. We show that both of these measurement techniques follow very naturally from consideration of simple slit-based optical interferometers, and that they can be implemented with electron accelerator driven sources – i.e. free electron lasers and synchrotrons - producing temporally and/or spatially coherent photon beams. The objects in the beams are common silicon devices, and the experiments yield demonstrations of both fundamental concepts in quantum physics as well as – on the side of applied science - the ability to “read” integrated circuits in three dimensions.
About Gabriel Aeppli
Gabriel Aeppli is professor of physics at ETH Zürich and EPF Lausanne, and head of the Photon Science Division of the Paul Scherrer Institut. All of his degrees are from MIT and include a BSc in Mathematics and Electrical Engineering, and MSc and PhD in Electrical Engineering. A large fraction of his career was in industry, where, starting as a work-study student at IBM and after his PhD moving to Bell Laboratories and then NEC, he worked on problems ranging from liquid crystals to magnetic data storage. He was subsequently co-founder and director of the London Centre for Nanotechnology and Quain Professor at University College London. Aeppli also cofounded the Bio-Nano Consulting Company, of which he remains a non-executive director. He is a frequent advisor to numerous private and public entities worldwide (including China, Australia, Europe and the US) engaged in the funding, evaluation and management of science and technology. Honors include the Mott Prize of the Institute of Physics (London), the Oliver Buckley prize of the American Physical Society, the Néel Medal/International Magnetism Prize of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, and election to the (US) National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Society (London).
Audience: Public
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