QUANTUM mechanics describes the world of electrons and atoms, but not everyday objects. What if we could probe the boundaries of this quantum-classical divide by "entangling" two microscopic levers?
Proving that bigger and bigger objects obey the same quantum rules is a huge challenge. Although the cantilevers would be only tens of micrometres long, they would constitute a bigger and more complex system than any yet shown to exhibit quantum behaviour. The larger an object, the more easily its quantum state is destroyed.
In March, Aaron O'Connell and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara, showed that a microscopic cantilever made of aluminium nitride can be simultaneously still and vibrating, a sign that it is in a quantum state.
Now Erika Andersson, Patrik Öhberg and Chaitanya Joshi of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK, and colleagues have a method for entangling two of these microscopic cantilevers.
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