Scientists Discover New Form Of Light That Could Change The Game In Quantum Computing

A team of physicists appears to have created a new form of light, one that could have some exciting implications in the field of quantum computing.

In a study published this week in the journal Science, the researchers documented how they developed a solution where individual photons were joined together, much like in molecules, where individual atoms are positioned next to each other. As noted by the Smithsonian, photons traditionally do not have any interactions with each other, as they tend to travel by themselves as they pass through light beams.

Working alongside fellow study lead Mikhail Lukin from Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of physics Vladan Vuletic had long been brainstorming on ways to stimulate photons to interact with each other. In 2013, both researchers and their colleagues at the MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms spotted something unusual — photons binding together and hinting at possibilities of a new form of light being created. This inspired them to see if it was possible for more photons to be bound together in bigger formations.

“For example, you can combine oxygen molecules to form O2 and O3 (ozone), but not O4, and for some molecules you can’t form even a three-particle molecule,” explained Vuletic, in a statement published on the MIT website.

“So it was an open question: Can you add more photons to a molecule to make bigger and bigger things?”

For the new study, the researchers sought to do as Vuletic suggested, using the same methodologies previously utilized in 2013 to observe the photon pairings. The team started by freezing a bunch of rubidium atoms to a mere millionth of a degree over absolute zero temperatures, allowing the atoms to drastically slow down to the point where they were hardly moving.

The next step was for the researchers to shine a laser beam through the near-immobile atoms, making sure it was so weak that only a few photons would be able to pass through the atom cloud. It was there where they discovered that the photons were joined together in pairs and triplets, instead of streaming out independent of each other at random.

Scientists create a new form of light by linking photons. Photons typically don’t interact, but physicists bound three together in the lab. This new form of light could someday be used to build light crystals for communication and computing. https://t.co/RGpMQblRAQ pic.twitter.com/3hkKrno2fj
— Ajit Johnson (@ajitjohnson_n) February 17, 2018

With the researchers having come up with the aforementioned new form of light, they came up with their own theory to explain why the photons were interacting with each other in the experiment. As explained by Newsweek, they believe that the particles jump from one atom to the next in the same way that bees fly from one flower to another. This could lead to the creation of what the scientists call “polaritons,” or photon-atom hybrids that are created if multiple photons simultaneously pass by the same atom. This process, which could have the “polaritons” leaving the atom as a pair or a triplet, happens very quickly, lasting only a millionth of a second.

Although the MIT press release mentioned fantastical applications for the new form of light, such as the creation of a Star Wars-style light saber, the most practical, realistic application could have something to do with quantum computers that could, in theory, come up with solutions for complex problems in a matter of split-seconds. Vuletic commented that if photons could be made to travel in pairs or triplets, light could potentially travel much faster, allowing for data to be crunched just as quickly to come up with the aforementioned solutions.

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