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German Scientists Create Bose-Einstein Condensate Using Photons
xt writes "A team of physicists, led by the University of Bonn's Martin Weitz, have managed to create a Bose-Einstein condensate (here's a more detailed explanation) out of photons, previously thought to be impossible. The research was published in the journal Nature (abstract, and the arXiv has the submitted paper as a PDF) and has possible applications on solar energy technology and shortwave lasers, which would be well-suited to the manufacture of computer chips as the process uses lasers to etch logic circuits onto semiconductor materials. Seems like Moore's law is safe again!"
You know it isn't nice to insult crap like that.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Super Photons, original flavor: Not From Condensate.
Regular Photons: From Condensate.
Spooky Photons: (Note: contains only about 50% of stated volume)
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
"Seems like Moore's law is safe again!"
That's great, but if memory and I/O speeds don't keep up, the extra FLOPS are becoming more and more worthless....
Currently hooked on AMP
So this would presumably be used for extreme ultraviolet lithography?
I guess this paragraph from the Wikipedia article may be relevant:
A further characteristic of the plasma-based EUV sources under development is that they are not even partially coherent, unlike the KrF and ArF excimer lasers used for current optical lithography. Further power reduction (energy loss) is expected in converting incoherent sources (emitting in all possible directions at many independent wavelengths) to partially coherent (emitting in a limited range of directions within a narrow band of wavelengths) sources by filtering (unwanted wavelengths and directions). On the other hand, coherent light poses a risk of monochromatic reflection interference and mismatch of multilayer reflectance bandwidth.
As the photon BEC works at room temperature and seems quite simple, and shows a switching behaviour, can't it simply be miniaturized and used as a replacement of circuitry instead of used for lithography?
The research is a fascinating work about fundamental physics. This is one case where a sales pitch about about possible, only tangentially related applications in computing is quite unnecessary.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
How is a Bose-Einstein condensate of photons any different than regular ol' standing wave?
Then God help us. God help us all.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Click your heels 3 times, and say:
There's no laze like Bose!
There's no laze like Bose!
There's no laze like Bose!
Photons bouncing around inside the resonant cavity could be considered a standing wave, but the BEC requires them to reach a minimum critical density in order to achieve the BEC state. Meanwhile lasers formed by traditional population inversion can happen at any amplitude.
British subject, do not worry if we all die, for the Lord knows them that are His!
You know whats odd?
If this was previously thought to be impossible - you'd think it would have much larger implications.
Perhaps they should have said previously thought to be improbable?
The first link reads like an elementary school primer, while the second link reads like a PHD dissertation. Is it not possible to explain quantum mechanics at a normal adult level?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
What I want to know is: Will this do as much to improve the sound of my Bose speakers as Monster cables do?
When all you have is an axe, everything looks like a grindstone.
Once all the Germans were warlike, and mean
But that couldn't happen again!
We taught them a lesson in 1918
And they've hardly bothered us since then!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Neither the linked wiki to the layman's explanation, nor the "detailed" one explain it the way I think I understand it.
As you cannot know momentum and position simultaneously with great accuracy (I think it's those two anyway), when you cool these down to near absolute zero, you know their momentum very accurately, which is almost zero. Hence their positional accuracy skyrockets into fuzziness.
Can someone please clean this up for me so I can understand it better?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Tell me this won't lead to sentences like "Excuse me, but could I please borrow a cup of red light???"
Then God help us. God help us a- anyway, I'm not religious.
It saddens me to see all these oh-so-funny Bose audio system jokes. Its rather an injustice to the scientific work of Satyendra Bose.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
I think this was pretty firmly considered impossible - there is a problem in my stat mech textbook (Kittel and Kromer, Thermal Physics) as follows: 7.7) Photon condensation. Consider a science fiction universe in which the number of photons N is constant, at a concentration of 10^20 cm^-3. The number of thermally excited photons we assume is given by the result of Problem 4.1, which is Ne=2.404V(tau^3)/(pi^2hbar^3c^3). Find the critical temperature in K below which Ne N. The excess N - Ne will be in the photon mode of lowest frequency; the excess might be described as a photon condensate in which there is a large concentration of photons in the lowest mode. In reality there is no such principle that the total number of photons be constant, hence there is no photon condensate.
Frosty piss posts are worthless, GNAA posts are worthless and hurtful, but they are the least of this site's neuroses.
Wouldn't an improved (shrunk) fab process also be used to improve memory and storage (SSD) performance? It really is all about the I/O now.
Meta will eat itself