• DOI:10.1038/44348
• Corpus ID: 4424892

Wave–particle duality of C60 molecules

@article{Arndt1999WaveparticleDO,
  title={Wave–particle duality of C60 molecules},
  author={Markus Arndt and Olaf Nairz and Julian Vos-Andreae and Claudia Keller and Gerbrand van der Zouw and Anton Zeilinger},
  journal={Nature},
  year={1999},
  volume={401},
  pages={680-682}
}

• M. Arndt, O. Nairz, +3 authors A. Zeilinger
• Published 14 October 1999
• Physics
• Nature

Quantum superposition lies at the heart of quantum mechanics and gives rise to many of its paradoxes. Superposition of de Broglie matter waves has been observed for massive particles such as electrons, atoms and dimers, small van der Waals clusters, and neutrons. But matter wave interferometry with larger objects has remained experimentally challenging, despite the development of powerful atom interferometric techniques for experiments in fundamental quantum mechanics, metrology and lithography. Here we report the observation of de Broglie wave interference of C60 molecules by diffraction at a material absorption grating. This molecule is the most massive and complex object in which wave behaviour has been observed. Of particular interest is the fact that C60 is almost a classical body, because of its many excited internal degrees of freedom and their possible couplings to the environment. Such couplings are essential for the appearance of decoherence, suggesting that interference experiments with large molecules should facilitate detailed studies of this process.