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Storing Light In Chips
Roland Piquepaille writes "Recently, researchers have "stopped light" by storing light pulses in hot or extremely cold gases (check these former stories on Slashdot or at BBC News Online). Now, scientists from Stanford University have devised a method to store light pulses under ordinary conditions. In Light-storing chip charted, Technology Research News says this opens the way for all-optical communications switches, quantum computers and quantum communications devices. The researchers plan to demonstrate this technique by trapping microwave signals within a year. They think that a prototype which works at optical frequencies could be made in two to five years. This overview contains more details and references."
Well, if the light is held, it's not getting to your eyes, and thus not making a visible picture. So in that particular instance, I would think that this wouldn't help very much.
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quantum computers are still, and will be, a very very long way off. it is not enough to say that one single development will speed their coming, rather one obstacle will be replaced by another - sod's law
tim
The article gives the impression that these chips are storing or freezing light. I dont see how this is possible. If they were truly "storing" light how would one know? The way I see it, is that if you can "see" or "observe" light then by definition the light must be escaping.
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Yeah I was excited reading the article until this quote.
"The work would have been more impressive had the authors demonstrated the stopping of light experimentally, he added." Raymond Chiao, a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley.
Yup one of those 2-5 years things again, like so much else...
Hey, it took centuries to get around to using Copernicus's orbital equations with spacecraft. This is the beauty of basic research. It eventually has a practical use, but you can't base its validity on how long it takes to use it. And you have to distinguish between research and the ability to invent something. As John W. Campbell once pointed out, the Classical Greeks had everything necessarily to invent the phonograph, though it wasn't until Edison that somebody got around to doing it. In that particular case, it was the mental rut into which the Greeks had worn themselves that kept them from making much practical progress, thus leading to the return to power of irrational religion and the eventual rise of the Dark Ages.
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Actually, I think the first such "breakthrough" was when they managed to stop light in a Bose-Einstein Condensate, there-by proving that it was possible, under extreme circumstances. This is a much more practical way of doing it. If they succeed, then we will move beyond the "breakthrough" into the "practice" part. It could be very good.
Sorry for any misspellings or typos. I just crawled out of bed literally.
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IANA physicist, so I'm probably missing something here, but I thought that the speed of light was actually a constant. Now, I did RTFA, and it states: The researchers' simulation shows that light pulses can be slowed to less than 10 centimeters per second. What's up?
Also, as for storing light temporarily -- has anyone considered using a "mirror trap", in which the light would bounce around until the trap was opened?
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No, you misunderstand me. I think it's great that we have pure researchers pushing out the limits of human knowledge, and am grateful for their work. I certainly am glad they have results to publish.
I think the main problem is that we have a popular science press that, in talking down to its readers, always reports pure research as if it were applied research. While fun to read, the effect can be that technology becomes over-promised and over-hyped too early in its development. This can cause good tech to become stigmatized as a black hole for research funding.
I don't see anything that would indicate that these researchers are acting in an overly self-promotional manner. However, it looks like optical and quantum computing are in danger of being painted with the same brush as fusion power, AI, holographic storage, quantum effects (teleportation, anti-gravity, faster-than-light), etc..
An all-optical computer requires storing light with its wave state intact for signalling: either its envelope, waveform, spin states, or some other modulated state decodable as information. How about a material or device that merely stores the photons, as power? As we look at more efficient transmission of power derived from light (solar), or delivered as light (lamps or displays), the photon/electron conversion becomes a liability. It eats power, and constrains possibilities for the workings of the machine.
How about a photonic battery? I remember seeing AT&T research in 1990 desribing a 4bit optical benchtop computer that stored info in light along extremely long fiber spools, so a significant fraction of a second transpired as it cycled through its mirrored trap, allowing it to be read and written entirely in photonics. Is there a better material than traditional fiber for storing light in a small space? What is the actual power capacity of these fibers, anyway? Never underestimate the power capacity of a supertanker of equatorially solar charged optical bricks, especially if they contain more than 3.5E10 joules:m^3 (gasoline): 10E16 joules.