UNSW quantum engineers have developed a new amplifier that could help other scientists search for elusive dark matter particles.
Imagine throwing a ball. You'd expect science to be able to work out its exact speed and location at any given moment, right?
Well, the theory of quantum mechanics says you can't actually know both with infinite precision at the same time.
It turns out that as you more precisely measure where the ball is, knowing its speed becomes less and less accurate.
This conundrum is commonly referred to as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, named after the famous physicist Werner Heisenberg who first described it.
For the ball, this effect is imperceptible, but in the quantum world of small electrons and photons the measurement uncertainty suddenly becomes very significant.
That's the problem being addressed by a team of engineers at UNSW Sydney who have developed an amplifying device that performs precise measurements of very weak microwave signals, and it does so through a process known as squeezing.
