近期，北京大学孙庆丰团队实现了石墨烯基人造原子的轨道杂化。该研究于2025年2月26日发表在《自然》杂志上。

原子内轨道杂化和原子间键形成是真实原子凝聚形成物质的两个基本过程。人造原子通过展示可归因于量子限制的离散能级来模仿真实原子。因此，它们提供了一种固态模拟物，用于模拟原子内轨道杂化和原子间键的形成。原子间键形成的特征在各种人造原子中得到了广泛的观察。然而，人造原子中原子内轨道杂化的直接证据仍有待实验证明。

研究组通过改变人造原子的形状来实现人造原子的轨道杂化。束缚势的各向异性导致人造原子内不同轨道量子数的准束缚态之间的杂化。在该实验中，这些杂化轨道在真实空间中直接可视化，并通过数值计算和分析推导得到了很好的再现。该研究为设计无法通过实验在真实原子上获得的人造物质开辟了一条途径。此外，所获得的结果启发了对不同系统中量子态的渐进控制。

附：英文原文

Title: Orbital hybridization in graphene-based artificial atoms

Author: Mao, Yue, Ren, Hui-Ying, Zhou, Xiao-Feng, Sheng, Hao, Xiao, Yun-Hao, Zhuang, Yu-Chen, Ren, Ya-Ning, He, Lin, Sun, Qing-Feng

Issue&Volume: 2025-02-26

Abstract: Intra-atomic orbital hybridization and interatomic bond formation are the two fundamental processes when real atoms are condensed to form matter1,2. Artificial atoms mimic real atoms by demonstrating discrete energy levels attributable to quantum confinement3,4,5,6,7,8. As such, they offer a solid-state analogue for simulating intra-atomic orbital hybridization and interatomic bond formation. Signatures of interatomic bond formation have been extensively observed in various artificial atoms9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17. However, direct evidence of the intra-atomic orbital hybridization in the artificial atoms remains to be experimentally demonstrated. Here we realize the orbital hybridization in artificial atoms by altering the shape of the artificial atoms. The anisotropy of the confining potential gives rise to the hybridization between quasibound states with different orbital quantum numbers within the artificial atom. These hybridized orbits are directly visualized in real space in our experiment and are well reproduced by both numerical calculations and analytical derivations. Our study opens an avenue for designing artificial matter that cannot be accessed on real atoms through experiments. Moreover, the results obtained inspire the progressive control of quantum states in diverse systems.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08620-z

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08620-z