The orbiton was predicted theoretically by van den Brink, Khomskii and Sawatzky in 1997–1998. Its experimental observation as a separate quasiparticle was reported in paper sent to publishers in September 2011. The research states that firing a beam of X-ray photons at a single electron in a one-dimensional sample of strontium cuprate will excite the electron into a higher orbital, causing the beam to lose a fraction of its energy in the process before it rebounds. In doing so, the electron is separated into a spinon and an orbiton.