This is a relatively old article but for what it's worth, this work done by Prof. Lene Vestergaard Hau from Harvard University proves that light can be changed into matter and subsequently changed back into light.
They did the experiment by slowing the light pulse using a cloud of cold atom and the light, now travels at a very slow speed will made its imprint onto the cold atom. The experimenters then turned the light pulse off and tried to guide the imprint to a second cold atom cloud and surprising enough, the fingerprint can't be seen but the atom in the atom cloud were found not touching each other.
The distance between the first and second clump is only eight - thousandths of an inch apart but this can be considered a very distance gap. So when they nudge the second cloud with light pulse, then the imprint survives and is turned back to the light which has the same characteristics, shape and wavelength as it entered the first cloud.
From the first to the second clump of atom, the light change from the form of light pulse into an invincible matter wave, a clump of atom that travels through the cloud and behaving as wave. After the light beam was fired to the second clump, this matter wave turned into light pulse again and out it goes.
Well, the application of this light - matter conversion mostly will be in telecommunication as it is believed that light can carry information and it is almost tamper proof. We won't be seeing light be casually turned into matter in near future but the imagination will come true if we search hard enough for it.
Source: Here
| Prof. Lene Vestergaard Hau. Source: Here |
They did the experiment by slowing the light pulse using a cloud of cold atom and the light, now travels at a very slow speed will made its imprint onto the cold atom. The experimenters then turned the light pulse off and tried to guide the imprint to a second cold atom cloud and surprising enough, the fingerprint can't be seen but the atom in the atom cloud were found not touching each other.
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| An illustration of a 'super-photon' created when physicists turned photons into a state of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate. | Jan Klaers, University of Bonn. Source: Here |
The distance between the first and second clump is only eight - thousandths of an inch apart but this can be considered a very distance gap. So when they nudge the second cloud with light pulse, then the imprint survives and is turned back to the light which has the same characteristics, shape and wavelength as it entered the first cloud.
From the first to the second clump of atom, the light change from the form of light pulse into an invincible matter wave, a clump of atom that travels through the cloud and behaving as wave. After the light beam was fired to the second clump, this matter wave turned into light pulse again and out it goes.
Well, the application of this light - matter conversion mostly will be in telecommunication as it is believed that light can carry information and it is almost tamper proof. We won't be seeing light be casually turned into matter in near future but the imagination will come true if we search hard enough for it.
Source: Here
