For more than 200 years, double slit experiments have shown how waves create interference patterns, much like ripples overlapping on a pond. Over time, scientists have used this idea not just to prove wave behavior, but to measure things with great precision: first with light, then with beams of particles like electrons, atoms, and even large molecules. Today, interference helps measure tiny effects, ranging from electric and magnetic fields to gravity. If these interferometers are shrunk down to the size of atoms, materials properties can be measured one bond at a time, including in places like defects and interfaces that often control their properties. “This could unlock solutions to pressing challenges in energy conversion or the tailoring of advanced materials for novel applications,” says Toma Susi, collaborator from the University of Vienna.
Atoms in crystals sit in regular columns that can act like built in slits with a known and well-defined spacing. Advances in scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) allow focusing an ultra sharp electron beam onto just a pair of atoms and recording detailed diffraction patterns at each spot. Using this approach, the researchers show that a silicon crystal truly works as a double slit at the atomic scale. Lead author Koudai Tabata from the University of Tokyo remarks: “What we did not expect was how much information the fringes themselves carry: by examining their visibility in detail, we could read out how closely neighboring atoms move in the same direction as they vibrate.”
Surprisingly, these interference fringes stayed clear even as the sample was heated from room temperature to 900 K, revealing that only certain atomic vibrations blur the pattern while others leave it intact. The key insight was that nearby atoms don’t vibrate purely at random, but often move in sync, meaning their vibrations are correlated. By analyzing how the fringes change in different directions, the team could tell which atomic motions are stiffer (along the bond) and which are softer (sideways), effectively reading out local bond strength from the pattern itself.
The Tokyo team was supported by Toma Susi from the University of Vienna Faculty of Physics, who spent three months visiting the group over the winter semester 2024–2025. The simulations underlying the work used the open-source abTEM code developed by his group, with new improvements in the description of correlated vibrations. “I could provide just the right computational tools to enable these exciting results, and I am grateful to my institute for giving me the freedom to work in Japan,” Susi adds.
Establishing the widely used STEM microscope as an atomic-scale interferometer transforms the diffraction pattern itself into a direct probe of correlated vibrations. Because this approach can target specific pairs of atoms, it could be used to probe bonds at defects, interfaces, and grain boundaries. The result is an entirely new way to see which vibrations matter most and how microscopic motions shape the behavior of everyday materials. Senior author Naoya Shibata from the University of Tokyo concludes: “We believe this work opens up new possibilities for atomic-resolution electron microscopy. Looking ahead, we aim to apply this approach to a range of materials science problems such as the study of interfaces.”
Original publication:
Atomic-scale double-slit interferometry with a focused electron probe: Koudai Tabata, Takehito Seki, Toma Susi, Ryo Ishikawa, Naoya Shibata. Nature (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10914-9
Scientific contact:
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Toma Susi
Physics of Nanostructured Materials
Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna
1090 Vienna, Boltzmanngasse 5
T +43-1-4277-728 55
toma.susi@univie.ac.at
www.mostlyphysics.net
