Undergrad Particle in a box experiment confirmation

[ftr]

Is there any experiments that validate the results of particle in a box with infinite or finite potential. Thanks

 

[DrClaude]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_well

 

[ftr]

Thanks. But I was more interested in the confirmation of electron position probabilty, the article is more about the energy. Also the references are behind a pay wall.

 

[ftr]

Is there something wrong with my question, because I don't get any reply?

 

[PeterDonis]

I was more interested in the confirmation of electron position probabilty

Measuring the position of confined electrons is a lot more difficult than measuring their energy. For one thing, a sufficiently accurate position measurement at the scales of many such confinement wells for electrons will have enough momentum uncertainty to have a significant chance of kicking the electron out of the confinement well.

Also, if you know the wave function of the electron in the energy basis, you know it in any basis, since switching basis is just a matter of a mathematical transformation. So confirming the predictions of a "particle in a box" model regarding energy measurements is sufficient; you don't need to also test it with position measurements.

 

[ftr]

Thanks, I take that as no (no experiment). Then, Is there any experiment that confirms the momentum spectrum when the particle is sufficiently localized.

 

[DrClaude]

Not particle-in-a-box per se, but there have been many experiments for atoms trapped in a optical lattice potential or using trapped ions:
P. S. Jessen et al., Observation of quantized motion of Rb atoms in an optical field, Phys. Rev. Lett. 69, 49 (1992)
G. Grynberg et al., Quantized motion of cold cesium atoms in two- and three-dimensional optical potentials, Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 2249 (1993)
D. Leibfried et al., Quantum dynamics of single trapped ions, Rev. Mod. Phys. 75, 281 (2003)