Solid Light

In an effort to better understand matter, atoms, and subatomic particles, scientists have been getting creative. Since things like atoms, photons, and other particles that follow the laws of quantum mechanics are difficult to observe on their own, researchers at Princeton University have come up with a way to model their behavior on a larger, more observable scale. The researchers built a machine that simulates a specific quantum behavior by constructing an “artificial atom” out of 100 billion atoms, and, through quantum mechanics, linking that huge “atom” to photons on a superconducting wire. This causes the photons to start behaving like particles, in the sense that they can interact with each other like the atoms or molecules in a liquid or a solid would. This article is particularly interesting to me because it uses concepts that we have discussed in class, such as light’s wave/particle nature, in a way that has many implications for better understanding matter in the contexts of both physics and chemistry. 

http://phys.org/news/2014-09-solid-previously-unsolvable-problems.html

Submitted by LauraAnn Schmidberger