In their study, the team reported on the universal behavior observed in matter-wave diffraction of Helium (He) atoms and He₂ and Deuterium (D₂) molecules from a ruled grating. Clear evidence for emerging beam resonances is, then, observed in the diffraction patterns, which are quantitatively the same for all three particles and only depend on the de Broglie wavelength. A model, combining secondary scattering and quantum reflection, permits us to trace the observed universal behavior back to the peculiar principles of quantum reflection.”

This work has been supported by the grant from Creative and Innovation Project at the UNIST and by the Outstanding New Young Researcher Support Program of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Korea. As part of this work, Prof. Zhao has also been selected as a 2016’s Chung-Am Science Fellow by the POSCO T.J. Park Foundation.
The results of the study have been appeared in the March 18th issue of the journal, Science Advances.

Journal Reference
Bum Suk Zhao, Weiqing Zhang, and Wieland Schöllkopf. “Universal Diffraction of Atoms and Molecules from a Quantum Reflection Grating”, Sci. Adv. 2, (2016).