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New Form of Matter Melds Lasers, Superconductors
sterlingda writes "Physicists at the University of Pittsburgh have demonstrated a new form of matter that melds the characteristics of lasers and superconductors. The work introduces a new method of moving energy from one point to another as well as a low-energy means of producing a light beam like that from a laser. The new state is a solid filled with a collection of energy particles known as 'polaritons' that have been trapped and slowed using a technique similar to that used to produce a Bose-Einstein condensate. The work is published in the May 18 issue of Science (subscription required to read beyond the abstract)."
Again one step closer to that lightsaber. :)
Not trying to troll, but I really fear that all such experiments should be delayed until after humanity moved over to other planets so that any black hole accidents resulting from desire to get a Nobel Prize or just extra funding won't kill us all but only those involved in them.
Somebody has to caution these guys to sound as little as possible like Star Trek lines from Geordie. I think the deflector dish was reconfigured (in minutes) to emit polaritons at least once. Also, my spell checker just flagged "polaritons" as not even being a word.
It didn't say in TFA - does anybody know how dense these polaritrons are in the superfluid? Being, apparently, energy efficient to create, I'm wondering if this would make a good energy storage device - something to run those electric cars, even. It's hard to conjecture without a clue about how tight they're packed in, though.
I'm also pleasantly surprised to read that Bell Labs is still doing basic science - urban legend was that went out with the AT&T breakup.
Oh, and if anybody from physorg.com is reading, there's a strange display thing going on where ", " is replaced by "-" (not even space emdash space) in many sentences, making clause boundries in the sentences appear awkwardly as pseudo-hyphenated words.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Good luck combining fermions with photons. Photons are very much a type of boson, which means they're very much _not_ fermions. Perhaps the biologists should just combine mitochondria and chromosomes too, you know, to simplify the math?
You're telling me that fermions are not subatomic bundles of energy?
Quote from Wikipedia on fermions: "Therefore fermions are usually related with matter while bosons are related with radiation, though the separation between the two is not clear in quantum physics"
Oh wait. I just saw your handle. You're still an undergrad. You'll understand eventually if you keep at it though most people quit even before they reach your level of ignorance.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
This business with polaritons in semiconductors sounds a lot like the way phonons in crystal lattices work.
A phonon is a sort of derived particle. It isn't a fundamental particle in itself but it represents a quantized mode of vibration in a lattice of more fundamental particles. But as a quasiparticle it exhibits the same types of behavior as other particles subject to quantum mechanics.
Their classical analogue would be standing waves in a crystal lattice. These lose part of their classical wave-like character and become more particle-like when the vibrational energy in the crystal decreases to near zero. The vibrational energy at extremely low temperatures takes the form of a few phonons bouncing around in the crystal like free particles in a hollow box. Phonons are ultimately responsible for all conduction of sound and heat through solids.
A polariton is apparently the coupling of a photon with one of these, and they're claiming to have gotten interesting collective behavior. I'm not sure if this is a "new state of matter" but we may get some cool toys out of it.
This is really one of the most ignorant posts I've seen.
The community "should spend some time" combining photons, fermions, gluons etc. because "it would probably make much of the math a lot simpler."
Ever heard of string theory? The community has been spending an ENORMOUS amount of time trying to combine this things into a common picture. And trust me - it doesn't make the math simpler. Just ask Ed Witten.
A form of matter with the properties of a laser? Does that mean E=mc2 still holds or is this the form of matter that ghosts are made out, allowing a person's hand to pass through the matter when it's in a low energy state? Or _perhaps_ it was supposed to say something along the lines of "properties of substances that are used to generate lasers"?
the clock on the wall says 4 til 7
You want "polaritons, and fermions, and gluons, and quarks, and mesons, and bosons, all together with photons". Tell you what, I'll get right on that. After all, it's only a matter of coming up with a Grand Unified Theory, and how hard could that possibly be? Why hasn't anyone taken this simple step yet? How could we, the physics community, have overlooked such an obvious solution to the problem of proliferating subatomic particles?
It's such an easy way to win a Nobel Prize and have my name right up there with Einstein and Newton and Dirac.
Evil will always win, because Good is DUMB
Phonons are ultimately responsible for all conduction of sound and heat through solids.
I should have said this for insulators- in conductors the electrons are responsible for most conductivity.
As for the sensationalist headlines, that's just a funding ploy.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I'm wonder what the most promising practical applications of this new matter could be.
What are its constraints and limitations? How much energy-density or power-density can it handle?
Since lasers are being used in experimental development of confinement fusion, and since this polariton-filled matter is supposedly more energy efficient, I'd wonder if this new matter could be used to facilitate laser-confinement fusion.
Or is it just meant for low-power applications?
DVD-players, maybe?
No need to be a jerk about it, though. Especially since the supersymmetric postulate seems to be almost, but not quite, as bad as string theory in terms of a lack of predictive power. For those offended by that comment - just tell me some test we could potentially perform that would invalidate the postulate. I confess that I don't have a detailed knowledge of supersymmetry yet, but I'm always struck by how every experimental test I've seen so far is just ruling out fractions of the model space.
I'm not sure about that Wikipedia quote, either. It seems, frankly, downright wrong. You might as well say that the distinction between a moebius strip and a plain loop is not quite clear when they symmetry properties make the distinction plain as day. With fermions you have a half-integer spin field and all that entails: anti-commuting operators/Grassman variables => the Pauli exclusion principle, 720 degree rotations are the identity (generally), a propagator that goes like 1/p, the conservation of the net number of fermions, and etc. With bosons you'll find: commuting operators/plain numbers => Bose-Einstein condensation, 360 degree rotations are the identity, a propagator that goes like 1/p^2, non-conservation of the net number of bosons, particles that are their own anti-particles, and etc.
From your first post it seems that you don't know the first thing about condensed matter physics, either. There's a proliferation of phases for a very good reason - because they're real. That phases are distinguished by different properties, whether a symmetry or not, a latent heat necessary to cross the phase transition boundary, and etc.
Think of it this way, even if we manage to find some underlying structure that melds fermions and bosons, they're still going to be as different as water and ice. So, even if we eventually unify fermions and bosons under a single umbrella, the distinction will still be useful; just like how chemists don't have to bother with neutrons and protons but instead use nuclei and their properties + electrons.
Frankly, I'd be surprised if you've made it as far as you claim in physics given that you seem to have a very rigid way of thinking about the world. That, or your the kind of @ss who gives the rest of us physicists a bad name.
Perhaps the OP's sig calling for legalizing pot can shed some light...
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I for one, am pleased to welcome our frickin' superconducting laser shark overlords.
Okay, I found this other article about this discovery, and thought it was pretty good. It's worth a read:
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/11/5/17/1
So this thing is like a BEC, but it's made of "excitons" (electron-hole pairs) plus the photons causing the excitation. But these "polaritons" are so short-lived, I'm wondering what this invention could be practically used for. They're calling it a "quasi-equilibrium" system, because it's more of a dynamic equilibrium.
Could this "polariton condensate" be used to probe "quantum foam", or spacetime, or something? They've already said it's more energy efficient than a laser.
Surely something this exotic must be able to confer on us some useful ability, that it would have some practical application -- even if only for research purposes.
When I think of an exciton-photon combination as compared to electron inversion, then it reminds me of the difference between a turbine and a piston engine. This "polariton" thingy (exciton-photon combo) would be more efficient than the laser in a way that's analogous to how the turbine is more efficient than the piston explosion. I'd think that the key to maximizing its advantage is by stimulating the excitons with the highest energy photons possible. That way you're maximizing your energy savings from this more efficient process.
Hmm... so maybe it might be useful for laser-confinement fusion after all. Maybe it could be used for laser-based rapid-manufacturing, etc.
Whatever it is, you'd probably want it for a short-range application, due to the brief lifespan of the polaritons.
Over the last ten years I've watched the news releases about physics--and it seems that physics is wh0ring itself out just for news headlines.
Perhaps you should actually read the scientific journal articles if you're serious about this, instead of reading the popular reviews which are by definition "dumbed down" such that non-PhD's can understand in layman's terms what is going on.
Did they really demonstrate a new form of matter? What did we have at one time? Solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. We could have mixtures of the forms--like a suspension was a fine mixture of a liquid with a gas.
Did you actually read the JOURNAL article, or are you just extrapolating bullshit based on a popular science review of the actual journal article? If you actually didn't think physicists were 'whoring themselves out' your post would make you look significantly less ignorant.
You quote liquids and gases as being two distinct forms of matter, yet they're actually the same if you look on a phase-diagram plot. So why do you list them as being two separate phases?
Oh wait, that's right, you can go CONTINUOUSLY from liquid to gas, without any phase transition, along a proper thermodynamic trajectory of course! What makes them look like separate states of matter is whether you have a phase transition as you alter the system. And the phase-transition line (in pressure-temperature space) actually ends in a critical point (see here , such that you can choose a proper p-T trajectory either WITH or WITHOUT the phase transition.
Would you call a superconductor a new state of matter? It certainly is quite different from the metallic state, with a well-defined phase transition as you cool below Tc. What about a Bose-Einstein Condensate? What about a phase-transition from superconducting-like nature to BEC? These have all been well studied, and all are acknowledged as states of matter.
The fact that you question whether it's a new state of matter, and you refer merely solid, liquid, gas, and plasma without any reference to phase transitions, really shows your limited understanding of this subject. And that makes it all the more humorous that you actually go on to claim physicists are whoring themselves out.
make world, not war
Guess who gets all the funding in physics these days? "String theory" does pretty damn well. the more headlines you get, the more funding you get, the more research you get to do.
Same in engineering. You gotta senstionalize it and get your funders excited about what you're doing. Then you get to do more and bring it to completion, hopefully making it usefull.
That's what happens when the government funding dries up and you have to cater to the private sector for funding. Even the public funding agents now act more like corporations, requiring milestones and resuslts and presentations and reports every few months (as opposed to saying "Do your thing, get it working within 3 years"). So the need for headlines is a natural result, we basically have to advertise like companies fighting for contracts.
relax boy, no need to get your undies in a twist. Undergrad or no, being a jerk makes you sound much less intelligent.
Sheesh, you're spewing out pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo like a half-baked Star Trek dialog, and complaining when someone calls you on your BS.
You're telling me that fermions are not subatomic bundles of energy?
Subatomic? Bundle of energy? What the hell are you talking about? The ONLY property that defines whether a 'particle' is a fermion or not is whether it has half-integer spin. And the word 'particle' really refers to is a quantization, which can be any quantized excitation, doesn't mean subatomic.
Then applying the rules of Quantum Electrodynamics, a particle with well-defined half-integer spin must be anti-symmetric upon particle exchange, which leads to things like Fermi-Dirac statistics, the Pauli exclusion principle which is what makes atomic states look the way they are, etc.
make world, not war
Fermions spin? Half integer. Bosons spin? Full integer. Arguing about quantum physics on /.? Priceless.
Godless heathen.
Quantum electrodynamics is one of the most established, experimentally backed and well understood fields in all of science. The results from current models do not explain links to other theories very well, but in the isolated realm of their operation, they give answers with error ranges analogous to measuring the distance from here to the moon within a few millimetres of error margin.
As for combining particles, I think they may have thought about that. In fact, most of Quantum Physics began as a manner of seeing various things in a different way, and physicists are very much in love with Einsteins "simple as possible but not simpler" paradigm. Maybe, just maybe, there is a reason why borons and quarks are different types of particle? Like you know, a really BIG, mathematically articulated reason, for which Nobel prizes were awarded? Just a thought.
Here's another good article I found:
http://optics.org/cws/article/research/27439
Again, a more energy-efficient laser sounds like it could be used for nuclear fusion, or even just for more energy efficient consumer electronics (eg. DVD players)
Isn't Laser-TV supposed to be coming out this Xmas? I'd read that Novalux is working on improving the power of their Necsel laser modules for that purpose. If polariton lasers are 10 times more efficient than laser diodes and can operate at room temp, then maybe they'd fill the bill.
Some editor needs to learn the difference between a hyphen and an em-dash (unless Firefox isn't displaying them properly). The first sentence of paragraph three, as it stands, simultaneously suggests that a nanometer is thick and that the Metal Gear team somehow assisted the project.
... c'mon... "solid-Snoke"?
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
Hi, I want to explain something here. This thing produces normal lasers, that are the same as the lasers we already know and love. The difference is that it can produce them using much less power input. The traditional method of electron population inversion requires more energy input for the amount of laser beam you get out. This new polariton method can make the same amount of laser for less energy inputted.
For laser-confinement fusion, you'd want that kind of energy savings.
Or SDI, or that ballistic missile interception laser mounted on that Boeing aircraft.
I'm even wondering if those desktop particle accelerators based on laser-wakefield effect wouldn't also benefit.
Anything that requires a high-power laser beam could benefit from this new polariton laser method. A turbine is already going round and round like a polariton, and is distinct from the discrete reciprocating motion of a piston, or the population inversion of electrons.
The fact that you question whether it's a new state of matter, and you refer merely solid, liquid, gas, and plasma without any reference to phase transitions, really shows your limited understanding of this subject.
"State of matter" doesn't really have a strict definition in terms of phase transitions: most phase transitions don't give rise to new states of matter, and one state of matter may be transformed into another one without a phase transition (as you yourself observe).
Important as this result may be, it does not seem to meet the criteria for a "new state of matter". In fact, the objects in which these interactions take place seem to be simply in the solid state, and the objects (polaritons) composing the new state are not made of matter. So, you have a new state, and it's a state that exists inside a solid object, but it's not a "new state of matter".
Okay, I know -- here's a good application:
http://www.mcp-group.com/rpt/rpttslm.html
Selective Laser Melting. It's a relatively new rapid prototyping technology which uses laser beams to melt powdered metal or plastic, so that it can be formed layer-by-layer into 3D parts.
So this would be an example of what this polariton laser would be good for, because the polaritons can generate the laser much more efficiently than conventional electron population inversion. Your power requirements would be reduced by 90%, and possibly even more.
"Perhaps the biologists should just combine mitochondria and chromosomes too, you know, to simplify the math?"
Funny man... cytologists don't use math!
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
Good luck combining fermions with photons. Photons are very much a type of boson, which means they're very much _not_ fermions.
Photon: Integer spin: Boson.
Electron: Half-integer spin: Fermion.
Hole: Half-integer spin: Fermion.
Electron-hole pair: Sum of two half-integer spins = integer spin: Boson.
So an electron-hole PAIR and a photon of the excitation energy hanging around in a crystal full of electrons can be duals - "flipping back-and-forth" or forming a quantum-indeterminancy of which it "really is" - i.e. a "polariton".
And as a fine boson it doesn't give a hoot for the exclusion principle and actually prefers to be in step with its neighbors.
So successfully creating a suitable nanoscale structure to cause a bunch of them to form, then to combine into a bose-einstein condensate, seems like a reasonable accomplishment.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
What a dumbass you are. State transitions don't define states of matter; many state transitions don't lead to new states of matter at all. Go back to your books.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Obviously I meant to type phase transitions.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
A 'state of matter' is typically regarded as having different macroscopic properties brought about by a phase transition.
Typically (i.e., to most people), a "state of matter" is regarded to be what people learn in school to be a state of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and sometimes plasma. That definition is what counts in a press release to the general public. If a press release talks about a "new state of matter", it implies that something has been added to that list, or at least obviously belongs on that list.
When communicating with the public, it's the responsibility of scientists to use the commonly understood meaning of terms. That's not "philosophical" or "linguistic" minutiae, it's a question of clear and honest communication.
Of course ice/water is a great example, but superconductor/metal in aluminum is another example as well. If you really don't agree with this, then you'd consider gas and plasma to be the same state of matter (a point that the original poster disagrees since (s)he specifically mentioned gas/plasma being distinct states).
It's not obvious at all to me that the gas/plasma distinction is comparable to the superconductor/metal distinction. I think there are many reasonable definitions of "state of matter" that would distinguish gas/plasma, but consider superconductor/metal to be the same state of matter.
However, there probably should be a few more "states of matter" included in the standard list: neutron matter and superfluids, for example.
Everything nowdays goes into the media as a new kind of matter. You don't even need to use barions for that.
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