Propagation of a X-ray pulse in a thin iron foil. (Credit: Kilian Heeg/MPIK)
Physicists from the Heidelberg MPI for Nuclear Physics have, in collaboration with DESY and the University of Jena, demonstrated at PETRA III and the ESRF (Grenoble) for the first time two fundamental effects of nuclear quantum optics in the X-ray regime . By resonant scattering by a thin-iron sample they managed to control the wave properties of X-ray pulses and to slow their propagation speed down by a factor of 10,000.
(from MPG Press Release and DESY News (only in German))
Reference:
Interferometric phase detection at x-ray energies via Fano resonance control; K. P. Heeg, C. Ott, D. Schumacher, H.-C. Wille, R. Röhlsberger, T. Pfeifer, and J. Evers; „Physical Review Letters“ 114, 207401 (2015); DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.207401
Tunable sub-luminal propagation of narrowband x-ray pulses; K. P. Heeg, J. Haber, D. Schumacher, L. Bocklage, H.-C. Wille, K. S. Schulze, R. Loetzsch, I. Uschmann, G. G. Paulus, R. Rüffer, R. Röhlsberger, and J. Evers; „Physical Review Letters“ 114, 203601 (2015); DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.203601
Further information:
"Viewpoint: Cavity with Iron Nuclei Slows Down X Rays", R. Kaiser, May 18, 2015, Physics 8, 47)
