Neon Diatom

Neon Diatom is an industrial band from New Minneapolis, Canada.

Albums

• Neon Diatom

Singles

• "Ambient Puncture Wound"

Diatom in quantum physics (nonfiction)

[P]hysicists Michele Sclafani, Markus Arndt and colleagues from the University of Vienna performed quantum physics using diatoms, a mostly unicellular marine algae that are encased within a cell wall made of silica that is known as a frustule. In the experiment, Sclafani used Amphipleura pellucida – an alga that can be found on the beach. It has a wall thickness of 90 nm and a surprisingly regular pore distance of about 200 nm. The researchers found that they could use the diatom to measure molecular De Broglie wavelengths as small as a few billionths of a millimetre by firing beams of molecules at it.

To do this, the Amphipleura pellucida frustule was suspended in a vacuum with its pores oriented towards the coherent molecular beam of phthalocyanine molecules – a commonly used blue-green dye. Incidentally, a phthalocyanine molecule is about a million times more massive than an electron. Phthalocyanine was chosen because it gives off fluorescent light when illuminated with a laser and so can be easily detected. The beam was created by shining a 1.5 μm focused laser onto a dye-coated glass window. The tiny spot size of the laser ensured that the beam was coherent. The beam was then sent through the alga and each individual molecule was counted on a screen behind the sample. This was done by observing the location of the fluorescent light with a microscope. After many molecules were passed through the alga, the ensemble of their locations made up the diffraction pattern.

Scalfani says that, in the long run, the focus of the group is to probe the matter–wave duality of an object that has mass and complexity. “Matter–wave duality still puzzles people – is there any limit to quantum mechanics, mass-wise?” he asks. Understanding this is crucial.

Fiction cross-reference

• Feral Butler
• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles
• Neon Diatom (album)
• New Minneapolis, Canada

Nonfiction cross-reference

• [Diatomic molecule] @ Wikipedia
• [Diatoms bring the quantum effect to life]