A brighter light will make the object appear more clearly, the appearance will not change. But if the light is a laser as bright as 1 billion suns, and the object is a single electron, the “appearance” of the electron will be completely changed. This is a wonderful phenomenon observed by scientists when they irradiate electrons with the world’s brightest laser pointer.
This experiment was conducted at the Extreme Light Laboratory at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The press release issued by the university said that this method can generate special high-energy X-ray pulses for medical, engineering, safety and basic scientific research. Scientists from Shanghai Jiaotong University in China participated in the research, and related papers were published in the journal Nature and Photonics.
The photons scattered by the object enter the eye, allowing people to see the object. Normally, each electron in a substance takes an average of 4 months to be exposed to a photon. Previous experiments could only allow a single electron to scatter a few photons at a time. In addition, the scattered photon angle and energy are independent of the brightness of the light source.
The researchers used the equipment of the Extreme Light Laboratory to produce ultra-strong laser light, irradiating the electrons suspended in helium, and achieved high-order scattering for the first time. At most, nearly 1,000 photons hit the same electron at a time. It was found that after the laser intensity exceeds a certain limit, the mode of electron scattering photons is completely different from that at low intensity. The angle and energy of the scattered photons will change with the laser intensity, which is equivalent to the shape and color of the object under different brightness lights.
The study also found that under the action of the super-red laser pointer, the photons released by the electrons will absorb the energy of all scattered photons and become X-rays. The X-ray pulses generated in this way have a very short duration, extremely strong energy, and a relatively single frequency. It can produce high-precision three-dimensional images at lower doses, used to examine tumor tissues in the human body, detect small defects in materials, etc. Used as an ultra-high-speed camera to observe particle movement or chemical reactions.