Scientists were able to "freeze" the light on for a minute

German researchers froze the fastest thing in the universe - light: they were able to keep him in that condition at record time - a minute.
Achievement can be a great breakthrough in the field of quantum memory and storage. Scientists began to work in this direction because the light maintains its quantum properties of coherence (that is, information about his condition), and this in turn makes it possible to create a quantum memory based on the light and provide a secure quantum communication, even on the long distances.

Of course, to "freeze" the light of difficult - just put it in the freezer can not. The light - is electromagnetic radiation that can travel at a speed of 300 million m / sec. In one minute the light overcomes about 18 million kilometers, or 20 times around the moon passes. However, it can slow down or even completely stopped: the researchers have been able to do this before - when they were able to "freeze" the light on the 16.



In the new experiment, the German scientist Georg Heinze and his team converted the coherence of light in atomic coherence. They used the quantum interference effect, making an opaque environment - in the experiment, it was crystal - clear in a narrow range of the spectrum of light (a process called electromagnetically induced transparency, or EIT).

Researchers sent a laser crystal, atoms are putting it into a superposition of two states. Then, in the same place it was sent second beam, neutralizing the first laser and accordingly provides transparency. Thus, the scientists destroyed the superposition and actually caught the light trapped inside the second laser beam.

In addition, in the course of the experiment was able to pass, and then to successfully obtain information - image with three horizontal stripes of 100 microns in length.

In the future, the researchers will try to use various substances to increase the length of data storage.

via factroom.ru