Scientists Bind Photons, Create 'Solid Light'

Sep-28-13 A team of scientists have developed way to create ‘solid’ light—a discovery that could have applications in both quantum and classical computing.

The team created the previously theoretical state of matter by causing photons to bind together to form molecules. To do so, they used laser beams to cool atoms of rubidium to just above absolute zero. They then used a weaker laser to fire single photons into the atom cloud. As the photon moved through the cloud, it slowed down dramatically as its energy excited atoms along its path. The team learned that when they fired two photons into the cloud, the photons tended to stay near each other, because the second photon had to wait for the first photon to move forward before it could excite its neighboring atoms. The atomic interaction caused the photons to behave like a molecule, and exit the cloud of atoms together.

Says team leader, Harvard Professor of Physics, Mikhail Lukin, "We do this for fun, and because we're pushing the frontiers of science. But it feeds into the bigger picture of what we're doing because photons remain the best possible means to carry quantum information. The handicap, though, has been that photons don't interact with each other."

Image: Nature
Photons with strong mutual attraction in a quantum nonlinear medium.
Thumbnail: Wicked Lasers

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[CNET.COM]
[PHYS ORG]

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