Yes. On September 17, 2026, Stanford physicists led by Amir Safavi-Naeini reported the first direct, real-time observation of quantum jumps of sound—sudden energy-state changes by phonons—in a mechanical resonator, in results published in the journal Science.
Quantum jumps had previously been seen in trapped ions (1986) and in photons (2007), but watching individual phonons jump had remained elusive. The team paired a long-lived chip-scale resonator with a superconducting qubit detector that took hundreds of measurements within about two milliseconds to catch the moment the vibration dropped from energy state 1 to 0.
The advance matters for quantum computing error correction, precision sensing, and finer control of sound-based technologies. Co-first authors included Takuma Makihara and Erik Szakiel.
Source: Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences feature, September 17, 2026