{"id":236031,"date":"2026-04-27T22:31:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T03:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/single-x-ray-photons-reveal-hidden-light-matter-interactions-in-50-nanometer-double-slits"},"modified":"2026-04-27T22:31:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T03:31:35","slug":"single-x-ray-photons-reveal-hidden-light-matter-interactions-in-50-nanometer-double-slits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/single-x-ray-photons-reveal-hidden-light-matter-interactions-in-50-nanometer-double-slits","title":{"rendered":"Single X-ray photons reveal hidden light-matter interactions in 50-nanometer double slits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/single-x-ray-photons-reveal-hidden-light-matter-interactions-in-50-nanometer-double-slits2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A rainbow reveals with colors what otherwise remains hidden: light is \u201crefracted\u201d by transparent matter, in this case water droplets. This same physical effect underlies many everyday technologies, like LCD screens and broadband connections based on fiber-optic cables. Light refraction is caused by an interaction between light and the atoms of matter. This brings the light waves slightly out of sync, so to speak. \u201cX-ray light\u201d is \u201crefracted,\u201d too. But the effect is difficult to measure here.<\/p>\n<p>A miniature device now offers a novel approach: Researchers from the Universities of G\u00f6ttingen and Hamburg, together with partners, have built the world\u2019s smallest X-ray interferometer, to their knowledge. It has enabled them to precisely measure, for the first time, the refraction of X-rays confined to a few nanometers, and to deduce how they interact with atomic nuclei. The study was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41566-026-01892-5\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the journal Nature Photonics.<\/p>\n<p>The new X-ray interferometer is based on the famous double-slit experiment, which Nobel laureate Richard Feynman said \u201chas in it the heart of quantum mechanics.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A rainbow reveals with colors what otherwise remains hidden: light is \u201crefracted\u201d by transparent matter, in this case water droplets. This same physical effect underlies many everyday technologies, like LCD screens and broadband connections based on fiber-optic cables. Light refraction is caused by an interaction between light and the atoms of matter. This brings the [\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-236031","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\/236031","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=236031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236031\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}