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Science

New Form of Matter Melds Lasers, Superconductors 113

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)."
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New Form of Matter Melds Lasers, Superconductors

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  • Woohoo... (Score:5, Funny)

    by d3m0nCr4t ( 869332 ) on Saturday May 19, 2007 @01:46PM (#19192249)
    Again one step closer to that lightsaber. :)
    • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 19, 2007 @02:03PM (#19192431)
      and one giant leap away from having a girlfriend. :)
    • by JordanL ( 886154 )
      Or the kinds of weapons we see in Star Wars and Star Trek. Sounds a lot like blasters (solid "chunks" of laser) phasers (variably interacts as a solid or laser) and shields to me.
      • by sanman2 ( 928866 ) on Saturday May 19, 2007 @07:18PM (#19194491)
        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.
        • Personally I don't find this development all that interesting. Now, if they can create a form of matter which melds lasers and freakin' sharks, we'd have something...
        • by Pfhreak ( 662302 )

          Anything that requires a high-power laser beam could benefit from this new polariton laser method.
          Pulsed laser rifles, here we come!
      • by sanman2 ( 928866 ) on Saturday May 19, 2007 @08:44PM (#19194967)
        Okay, I know -- here's a good application:

        http://www.mcp-group.com/rpt/rpttslm.html [mcp-group.com]

        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.
    • by sanman2 ( 928866 ) on Saturday May 19, 2007 @03:27PM (#19193011)
      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 [physicsweb.org]

      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.
    • How do you get a one-armed polariton out of a tree?
    • by cshark ( 673578 )

      Again one step closer to that lightsaber. :)
      Or a phaser. Let's just hope it comes with a stun setting.
    • solid-Snoke and his colleagues captured the polaritons
      Sounds like a video game to me. What do they pay these scientists for anyway?
  • by Anonymous Coward
    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.
    • by sentientbeing ( 688713 ) on Saturday May 19, 2007 @01:55PM (#19192341)
      Fucking Luddite. Out of my way. If they ever start selling mini black holes on ThinkGeek im first in line.
      • If they ever start selling mini black holes on ThinkGeek im first in line.

        Wow. That takes me back a few years. I remember reading a sci-fi short story (who's name/author I've long forgotten) about a kid who had a black hole kit - basically the future version of Sea Monkeys. It was in some kind of container and it had to be "fed" sand every day so it could become more and more supermassive and remain stable. After a certain period of time you were meant to stop "feeding" it and let it disappear over time via Hawking radiation. Of course this kid continued to feed it and it i

      • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by ColaMan ( 37550 )
        Yeah, but the cost of shipping will be a bitch.
    • by RelaxedTension ( 914174 ) on Saturday May 19, 2007 @02:02PM (#19192421)
      Problem being, they have to do these experiments to get us off of the planet in the first place...
      • Problem being, they have to do these experiments to get us off of the planet in the first place...

        The other side of that coin is that the one thing that would really, really motivate space colonization efforts would be a planet-killing disaster. And, no, global warming is not a planet-killing disaster. Just ask the mosasaurs that used to live in Kansas.

      • by elucido ( 870205 )
        Everyone knows humans arent supposed to make it off the planet. God says so.
        Instead, learn to profit while we destroy ourselves and planet earth and forget about spacewars.
    • Read Hyperion by Dan Simmons. that wont happen until there is some good AI with a very evil plan to destroy humanity.
    • Actually, black holes emit energy, so there is no chance of this happening whatsoever. The black holes formed in particle acceleration experiments dissipate within a fraction of a fraction of a tiny fraction of an even smaller fraction of a much smaller fraction of a miniscule fraction of a second.
      • We don't know the physics of black holes well enough to know what tiny variable change might keep it from evaporating.
  • 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.
    • I think the deflector dish was reconfigured (in minutes) to emit polaritons at least once.
      Of course it was; all they had to do was reverse the polarity!
    • Of course spell checker flagged it. What part of "new state of matter" didn't process when reading TFA? Spell checkers don't magically learn new words.

      And Star Trek is just a prime example of art imitating life. Most of those words do exist in the field. They're often used incorrectly to throw around science-y sounding terms, but would they continue to do it if it didn't actually sound like scientific jargon?
      • by rbrander ( 73222 )
        Sigh. From the rest of the post, you might have imagined I was joking. Or maybe criticisms of a show that's been off the air for over a decade are very serious posts to some people. I am sure that many dedicated Trek fans applaud your spirited defence. I apologize unreservedly for the criticism. Please don't hurt me.
        • I could not possibly care less about criticisms of Star Trek. I simply assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that you were some 80s baby who didn't know that the science words came first, and that it's not a bunch of geeky scientists sitting around and naming things after random crap uttered by actors.

          I imagined you were joking, but this being Slashdot, I erred on the side of idiocy.
  • by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Saturday May 19, 2007 @02:15PM (#19192499) Homepage Journal
    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.
    • 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?
    • Here are my quick thoughts. I am not a physicist however.

      It would seem to me that polaritrons would be short-lived and hence could only exist in certain conditions It would seem to me you might be able to use them for high-efficiency lasers. I don't know about superconductors though-- seems like the energy going in required to maintain the state would be a good way to negate the benefits from a superconductor....
  • Editor Foo! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by coyote4til7 ( 189857 )
    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"?
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      No, they meant with the properties of a laser [beam]. The polaritons are coherent when they're confined, just* like photons are coherent in a laser beam.

      Using specially designed optical structures with nanometer-thick layers-which allow polaritons to move freely inside the solid-Snoke and his colleagues captured the polaritons in the form of a superfluid. In superfluids and in their solid counterparts, superconductors, matter consolidates to act as a single energy wave rather than as individual particles.

      I suppose saying "beam" or talking about the photons in the laser beam would have been slightly more clear to the people who didn't read the article, but it's hardly something poorly written enough to be complaining about.

      IAA physicist and material scientist, but I don't know enough about superconductors to really make worthwhile comments on that analo

      • Here's another good article I found:

        http://optics.org/cws/article/research/27439 [optics.org]

        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
  • I for one, am pleased to welcome our frickin' superconducting laser shark overlords.
  • 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"?
  • Did they achieve these "polaritons" by reversing the phase array on the main deflector dish? (Well, OK, just so long as they don't try crossing the streams...)

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