{"id":221358,"date":"2025-09-03T04:25:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T09:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/quantum-researchers-observe-real-time-switching-of-magnet-in-heart-of-single-atom"},"modified":"2025-09-03T04:25:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T09:25:12","slug":"quantum-researchers-observe-real-time-switching-of-magnet-in-heart-of-single-atom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/quantum-researchers-observe-real-time-switching-of-magnet-in-heart-of-single-atom","title":{"rendered":"Quantum researchers observe real-time switching of magnet in heart of single atom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/quantum-researchers-observe-real-time-switching-of-magnet-in-heart-of-single-atom2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Researchers from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands have been able to see the magnetic nucleus of an atom switch back and forth in real time. They read out the nuclear \u201cspin\u201d via the electrons in the same atom through the needle of a scanning tunneling microscope.<\/p>\n<p>To their surprise, the spin remained stable for several seconds, offering prospects for enhanced control of the magnetic <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/nucleus\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">nucleus<\/a>. The research, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-025-63232-5\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Nature Communications<\/i>, is a step forward for quantum sensing at the atomic scale.<\/p>\n<p>A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) consists of an atomically-sharp needle that can \u201cfeel\u201d single atoms on a surface and make images with atomic resolution. Or to be precise, STM can only feel the <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/electrons\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">electrons<\/a> that surround the atomic nucleus. Both the electrons and the nucleus in an atom are potentially small magnets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands have been able to see the magnetic nucleus of an atom switch back and forth in real time. They read out the nuclear \u201cspin\u201d via the electrons in the same atom through the needle of a scanning tunneling microscope. To their surprise, the spin remained stable [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}