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Scientists Trap Light In Nano-Soup
An anonymous reader writes "Physicists at the Bhavnagar University in Gujarat, India have trapped light in a nano-soup concoction. The chance discovery could pave the way for lab-on-a-chip devices for processing optical information. As of now there is no theoretical explanation for why the fluid has the effects it does on laser light."
It's a dark sucker, and therefore abhors light.
Peter: "Hey Brian, there is a message in my Nano-Soup, it says 'oooooooooooooooo'"
Brian: "Thats not Nano-Soup, its your Cheerios."
Waiter, what is this light doing in my nano-soup?
It looks like the backstroke, sir.
Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week.
cream-of-laser soup?
Nano chicken soup for the soul...
Nano-soup for you!
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
potato soup does the same... nothing to see here move along
"No soup for you!"
Those who live by the sword, get shot by those who live by the gun...
FRIST SOPU WITH LIGH TIN I!
Apologize for the rotten LOTR reference, but apart from applications to electronic this could make a really could mass light storage device. "Take this crystal with you into the (forest, cave, night, basement) and flip the switch and it will turn from darkness to light!" Sounds hocus-pocus, but cool nonetheless! Then you just charge it by leaving it in light (artificial or sunlight) and you've got another use out of it.
Why do they claim that "As of now there is no theoretical explanation for why the fluid has the effects it does on laser light" when there's clearly a theory about why this happens right in TFA? Or is there some other definition used in the Scientific community for a "theoretical explanation" that I'm not aware of?
Gamertag: WyleType
Let's hope they're currently developing nano-croutons.
A rigorous theoretical explanation is yet to come, but the researchers believe that the spheres are aligned by the magnetic field and form microcavities - filled by the ferrofluid - in which the photons get trapped, resonating back and forth
I know they haven't published an explanation on this yet, but does anyone know what kind of power this sort of process takes? Power consumption would obviously be germane to computing using photons, which the article discusses. Also, what effect does the stasis have on the photon?
I got a catholic block.
Probably not: you need to keep a magnetic field of an exact strength around it to hold the light. So you still need batteries or some such to maintain the field. (You'd want an atrificial field so you can choose the wavelengths of light to capture, and because it is easier to remove uniformly.)
There is probably also a maximum amount of energy you can store per unit volume, though I'd guess they don't have that worked out yet.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
Won't anybody think of the photons!
Talk about Alpha Bits, literally.
-
This will do great things for the National Strategic Light Reserve, which is a vital part of our national security initiatives. Specifically, it exists to protect the nation in the event the sun burns out. Up until now, we've been storing light using a series of 100 watt bulbs and mirrors, but there has always been doubt as to what would happen to our light reserves in the event of a power outage. Perhaps this technology will help us solve that issue.
Waiter, there's a photon in my nano-soup.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Hope you can use something less flammable than that as the suspension medium. It could give overclocking a whole new, exciting angle.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
I turned on my flash light the other day, and instead of a nice round beam on the wall I saw this message:
"HELP! I AM TRAPPED IN A NANO SOUP FACTORY"
Soup Soup
Tasty Soup Soup
Spicy carrot and corriander
Chilli chowder
Crouton Crouton
Crunch friends in a liquid broth
I am gespatchio Oh!
I am a summer soup Mmmm!
Miso Miso
Fighting in the dojo
Miso Miso
Oriental Prince in the land of soup
errr
3 Profit.
In the USA SHARKS WITH FRIGGIN' HOT GRITS DOWN PANTS do YOU!!!
or something.
I wonder if storing photons should be actually seen as storing their energy (say, as that of an electron in an atom), rather than "storing" the photons themselves, as particles.
Except that according to TFA, the light hasn't actually "stopped". Instead it's been trapped in resonators, so in a crude picture it's bouncing back and forth within the fluid. The time effects observed relative to light should remain as they usually are, per relativity.
"Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself." -Richard Feynman
It's been done...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hole_of_Calcutta
> As of now there is no theoretical explanation for why the fluid has the effects it does on laser light.
God never thought that far ahead?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
... I'll have the light nano-soup with the eggless nanoodles.
Some physicist please tell us what happens.
Or, from the Wikipedia entry:
"it is alleged that many researchers have been shown to speculate that"
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
...would I need to be swimming in if I piss of Boeing and their 12,000lb Chemical Laser?! http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/199623173/article.pl
is put into a whole new context.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
In this case, the only way they're catching the light is effectively locking it up in a jar. If they open the jar to try and put more in, they lose the light they already captured.
Assuming they do find some way of adding more photons without losing what they've already got, the two options are:
1) The container fills up.
2) The container breaks.
Either way, nothing catastrophic would occur, unless they managed to contain a lot more energy. Just a flash of light. You can see from the photos in tfa, that the photons don't exhibit the same pattern that they did when the laser was firing (indicating some internal diffraction), so there wouldn't be a danger of having the equivalent of a more powerful laser shooting out in the same direction as the original beam. Then comes thermodynamics...It unlikely that they'd be able to contain energy in excess of the energy they're putting into containment (understatement), and entropy usually makes it so you have to spend a lot more energy, just to break even.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Try trapping a politician into telling the truth. Now that takes skill.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I'll accept that you can transfer information using photons. However, using this technology, magnetic fields are still required to store the photons. Hypothetically, if a computer was build using this nano-soup, then it would only be a hybrid-photon computer. Any ideas on what a photon computer buys you (technologically speaking). In copper wire, light travels slower than the speed of light in a vacuum (about 2/3c). But presumably the magnetic fields are created using standard electrical principles (like winding an iron nail with copper wire (to make an over simplification)). If the magnets are based on electricity, then it seems like this would limit the benefits of a photon computer. I guess it took decades to make a computer out of transistors. Maybe in 30 years there will be photon computers. I picture rooms filled with cans of photonsoup, and lines of people waiting with punch cards (deja vu?). Seriously, though. Does anyone have ideas pertaining to the first two paragraphs?
For them to trap sound in a bucket.
BEAUTIFUL Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!
Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,
Game, or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for two
Pennyworth only of Beautiful Soup?
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
Beautiful, beauti--FUL SOUP!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Best of all, we can stop Conserving light, and eliminate Daylight Savings once and for all!
where they invented Raman Noodles . . . "The Raman Research Institute".
And now it's light trapping nano-soup!
(Of course it will be sold in dehydrated form, so you have to add water and apply your own magnetic field before it's ready.)
I don't even understand how, if no time passes for a photon, how it can be created, destroyed, and bounced off stuff. Since position and direction can change despite the frozen status of the photon, doesn't that imply that those are not purely traits of the photon itself?
Personally, I'm holding out for Orion Slave girls.
." -- How has that not been filked yet? Tom, I'm so disappointed in you!
Or even Harry Mudd and enough Venus Drug I can contaminate the Water Supply with it.
"I wish they all could be green or-i-on Giiiirrrrllllss . . .
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
1. Make a ton of these chambers.
2. Fill them sequentially with a high-powered laser.
3. Unleash them simultaneously with a high-powered x N laser burst at the target (where N = number of chambers).
4. ???
5. Profit(able weapon)
6. Sell consumer version of weapon for say welding based on normal hand lasers and long charge times.
7. Profit(even more)
Gravity Sucks
that would explain why they were still able to see the light when the laser was turned off; photons have to reach your eye to be seen, which makes me want to ask how long this fluid is able to internally refract light = /
today is spelling optional day.
I'm only an undergraduate, but I made a post further down discussing briefly what I think might be happening. But basically, if my idea is correct then there is a maximum amount of light energy which may be stored in this nanofluid because there are a finite number of electrons in appropriate states for this transition to occur.
SRSLY.
"can see from the photos in tfa, that the photons don't exhibit the same pattern that they did when the laser was firing (indicating some internal diffraction), so there wouldn't be a danger of having the equivalent of a more powerful laser shooting out in the same direction as the original beam." brownian motion, it's trapped in a liquid. I doubt highly that you would actully get much of a laser beam out of it under any circumstance, more of a omni-directional flashlight. Now if they can use that external magnet to focus the light's direction... With quantaum fluctuations they could get around the problem of thermodynamics for the short run, maybe substantialy more so if they can work so bizzaro magic with entangled particles in a "heat sink" but I doubt there would be any hopes of seeing the NC117-C. (I hope my sleep deprived geekness hasn't scrambled the call letters.)
1. Make a ton of these chambers. 1b. Build an array of bombpumped x-ray lasers. 2. Fill them sequentially with array of bomb pumped x-ray lasers. 3. Threaten to unleash them simultaneously with a high-powered x N laser burst at the target (where N = number of chambers where E = Mass of bomb * Speed of light^2). 4. Extort govenments of the world to not melt the sun. 5. Profit(able weapon) 6. Buy Sharks with consumer version on head.
Did anyone else look at the article's image and think of the time vortex and opening scene from Doctor Who?
Can't wait..