Nature selected a picture from our "LEGO with lasers setup"

Our PhD student Leonardo Solidoro took a wonderful picture of our "LEGO with lasers", selected by Nature to be part of this article. Complete with fully functioning lasers, mirrors, and beam splitters, this ‘LEGO interferometer’ was designed by researchers at the University of Nottingham, UK, and can be seen in action at a public exhibition at the university’s Djanogly Art Gallery. The model replicates more-high-tech instruments that physicists use to probe materials, or even to measure the nearly imperceptible motions caused by gravitational waves. When two laser beams are combined, they create an interference pattern of alternating dark and bright stripes, which is highly sensitive to even the tiniest changes in the lengths of the beams.