A new kind of light creates a physical breakthrough

German scientists have created a breakthrough in the field of physics when a new type of light was created by cooling photon molecules into a state of blob.

A "super photon" is created when photons are cooled to a material state called "Bose-Einstein condensate". (Photo: Softpedia).

Just like solids, liquids and gases, new discoveries represent a state of matter. Called " Bose-Einstein condensate ", it was created in 1995 through the supercooling atoms of a gas, but scientists once thought it could not be created with photons ( photonic) - the basic units of light.

However, four physicists Jan Klärs, Julian Schmitt, Frank Vewinger and Martin Weitz of the University of Bonn in Germany have recently announced that they have completed the " impossible task" above. They named the new particles " super photons ".

Particles in a traditional Bose-Einstein condensate are cooled to absolute zero, until they merge and become indistinguishable, forming a giant particle. Experts have said that photons will not be able to achieve this state because it is impossible to cool the light while condensing it at the same time. Because photons are massless particles, they can simply be absorbed into the surrounding environment and disappear - which often happens when they are cooled.

According to LiveScience , four German physicists finally found a way to freeze photons without reducing their numbers. To confine the photons, the researchers invented a container made of mirrors that are extremely close to each other and are only about a millionth of a meter (1 micron) apart. Between the mirrors, the team placed " dye " molecules (essentially only a small amount of dye). When photons collide with these molecules, they are absorbed and then recurred.

The mirrors have " captured " photons by keeping them jumping - back and forth in a limited state. In the process, photonic particles exchange heat when they collide with a dye molecule. And finally, they are cooled to room temperature.

Although the room temperature could not reach absolute zero, it was cold enough for the photons to coalesce into a Bose-Einstein condensate.

In a recent article in the journal Nature , physicist James Anglin of Kaiserslautern Technical University (Germany) evaluated the experiment as " a landmark achievement" . The authors of the study added that their work could help bring applications in the manufacture of new lasers, with the ability to produce extremely short wavelength light in beams. X or ultraviolet rays.