Half light, half matter: a new quantum particle

Prospects for the development of computing and communication technologies based on quantum properties of light and matter may have taken a big step forward, thanks to the study of physics the city College of new York under the leadership of Vinod Menon.

In his pioneering work of Professor Menon and his team were able to detect particles of half-light, half-matter in atomically thin semiconductors (thickness of one millionth of a sheet of paper) consisting of two-dimensional layer of molybdenum and sulfur atoms are situated similarly to graphene. They fixed this two-dimensional material in the light trapped in the structure, and identified a composite quantum particles.

"Besides the fact that this breakthrough is fundamental, it opens the possibility of creating devices that get the benefits of both light and matter," says Menon.

For example, he refers to creating logical bridges and signal processors that take the best of light and matter. The opening will also contribute to developing practical platforms for quantum computing.

Dirk Englund, a Professor at mit, whose research focused in the field of quantum technologies based on semiconductor and optical systems, hailed the study of city College.

"In the work by Vinod and his team is interesting and exciting is how easy it is to get this powerful mode of communication. They convincingly demonstrated that by combining a rather standard dielectric cavity with the exciton-polaritons in a monolayer of molybdenum disulfide is possible to mode a strong connection with a very powerful tightening force."

The work was published in Nature Photonics.

Source: hi-news.ru