We recently learned the sad news that Dr. Akira Tonomura – a truly great experimentalist – passed away on May 2, 2012 during the course of treatment on pancreatic cancer.
We have been great admirers of Dr. Tonomura. Our blog’s banner is a cartoon representation of an experimental setup developed by Dr. Tonomura, through which in 1986 he showed single-electron buildups of electron wave interference fringe patterns. This experiment clearly revealed the dual nature of electrons and was described by Physics World magazine as the world’s most beautiful physics experiment, ranking above the historical experiments of Galileo Galilei and Robert Millikan.