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Storing Photons In a Solid State Device

Posted by timothy on from the next-year-in-vending-machines dept.

bondisthebest writes in with a report from IEEE Spectrum: "Physicists in Switzerland, led by Nicolas Gisin of the University of Geneva, reported last week in Nature that they have made a solid-state device capable of storing photons for as long as 1 microsecond. The invention will aid in the development of light-based quantum-cryptography networks, which are theoretically impervious to hacking but are currently limited in range to a few dozen kilometers, primarily because of a lack of a suitable way to store the quantum state of photons."

5 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. Photons, Toddlers, and Tonguetwisters by gbulmash · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wow, they've figured out how to store photons for about as long as my three-year-old obeys a command to stop fidgeting.

    From TFA: What they did was "find a way to trap a photon in a collection of 10 million neodymium atoms embedded in an yttrium orthovanadate crystal". Now say that 10 times fast. :-)

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  2. Schrödinger called... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...he said your server was either hacked or it wasn't.

  3. I'm Gonna Be Rich! by CopaceticOpus · · Score: 5, Funny

    I just need to be the first to patent two mirrors facing each other...

    1. Re:I'm Gonna Be Rich! by ArsonSmith · · Score: 3, Funny

      Here's my initial design blue prints:

      Active Photon Refection and Recapture Matrix

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      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
  4. Re:Just get a small black hole by osu-neko · · Score: 2, Funny

    Easy. Just get a small black hole. Shoot the photons around the gravity well. They'll last almost forever.

    No problem, we should have the LHC back online this year. :)

    --
    "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."