Wow.
Now it is possible to see a movie of an electron. The movie shows how an electron rides on a light wave after just having been pulled away from an atom. This is the first time an electron has ever been filmed, and the results are presented in the latest issue of Physical Review Letters.
Previously it has been impossible to photograph electrons since their extremely high velocities have produced blurry pictures. In order to capture these rapid events, extremely short flashes of light are necessary, but such flashes were not previously available. With the use of a newly developed technology for generating short pulses from intense laser light, so-called attosecond pulses, scientists at the Lund University Faculty of Engineering in Sweden have managed to capture the electron motion for the first time.
“It takes about 150 attoseconds for an electron to circle the nucleus of an atom. An attosecond is 10-18 seconds long, or, expressed in another way: an attosecond is related to a second as a second is related to the age of the universe,” says Johan Mauritsson, an assistant professor in atomic physics at the Faculty of Engineering, Lund University. He is one of seven researchers behind the study, which was directed by him and Professor Anne L’Huillier.
Or somewhat more technically (with a video):
We demonstrate a quantum stroboscope based on a sequence of identical attosecond pulses that are used to release electrons into a strong infrared laser field exactly once per laser cycle. The resulting electron momentum distributions are recorded as a function of time delay between the IR laser and the attosecond pulse train using a velocity map imaging spectrometer.
Why this doesn't violate the uncertainty principle I'm not sure. I think each frame/laser burst is a separate electron (timed to look like a single one)?