Stanford University · 4 October 2026
Watching a single phonon jump: the first quantum jumps of sound
Sound in a tiny resonator comes in lumps called phonons. Stanford has watched one lump vanish in a single step, in real time, using a superconducting qubit as the detector.
Paper: Makihara, Szakiel and Safavi-Naeini, Science (17 September 2026)