These striking photos are a window into the world of quantum physics

Two nonchalant physicists, one with a wry smile, are monitoring some of the most advanced quantum technology in the UK, an ultra-stable laser at the National Physical Laboratory in London. This enigmatic photograph, taken by photographer David Severn as part of a series of photographs for King’s College London’s Quantum Untangled exhibition, has also been shortlisted for the Portrait of Britain award.

“The portrait provides a rare insight into a usually hidden world. It’s as if the viewer has just opened the ordinarily off-limits door to their laboratory,” says Severn. Though the image is contemporary, the scientists and their interactions with the machines could be from decades ago, he says, echoing past iconography such as that of 1940s submarine operators or workers operating cotton spinning machines at the turn of the century.

Severn, who had no prior knowledge of quantum mechanics before embarking on the project and was briefed with capturing the people and laboratories working with quantum physics in the UK today, says that as he worked, the quantum world of uncertainty and logical contradiction began to seem strangely aligned with the way that artists see the world.

“Much of the scientists’ work eluded my detailed understanding, but I found concepts such as superposition and quantum entanglement resonated with me almost intuitively, in a way that felt closer to artistic perception than to formal explanation,” he says.

Severn’s photos capture a swathe of modern quantum physics, from the practical, like the 3D-printed helmet (above) housing quantum sensors that use magnetic fields to image the brain, or the labyrinthine laser table overseen by Hartmut Grote at Cardiff University, below, who is checking that the vacuum pump that keeps the system pristine is still working.

Many of Severn’s photos lean towards the mysterious, like the 3D-printed imaging helmet being worn by a researcher at the University of Nottingham’s Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre (first image below) or the complex web of pumps and mirrors (second image below) that are used to keep optical equipment clean in Grote’s experiment. This, says Severn, is by design.

“One of my favourite photographers, Diane Arbus, said, ‘A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.’ Quantum physics, I realised, works in much the same way,” says Severn. “Just when we think we understand how a beam of light behaves, the quantum world overturns expectation, exposing the hidden rules beneath the reality we thought we knew.”

The exhibition, Quantum Untangled, is at the Science Gallery at King’s College London until 28 February. Quantum Untangled is an adaptation of Cosmic Titans: Art, Science and the Quantum Universe, a touring exhibition from Lakeside Arts and ARTlab, University of Nottingham.