'Scientists Just Created Spacetime Crystals Made of Knotted Light' (sciencedaily.com) 18
By exploiting two-color beams, researchers "can generate ordered chains and lattices," reports ScienceDaily, "with tunable topology — potentially revolutionizing data storage, communications, and photonic processing."
An internationally joint research group between Singapore and Japan has unveiled a blueprint for arranging exotic, knot-like patterns of light into repeatable crystals that extend across both space and time. The work lays out how to build and control "hopfion" lattices using structured beams.. three-dimensional topological textures whose internal "spin" patterns weave into closed, interlinked loops.
They have been observed or theorized in magnets and light fields, but previously they were mainly produced as isolated objects. The authors show how to assemble them into ordered arrays that repeat periodically, much like atoms in a crystal, only here the pattern repeats in time as well as in space. The key is a two-color, or bichromatic, light field whose electric vector traces a changing polarization state over time. By carefully superimposing beams with different spatial modes and opposite circular polarizations, the team defines a "pseudospin" that evolves in a controlled rhythm. When the two colors are set to a simple ratio, the field beats with a fixed period, creating a chain of hopfions that recur every cycle. Starting from this one-dimensional chain, the researchers then describe how to sculpt higher-order versions whose topological strength can be dialed up or down...
Topological textures like skyrmions have already reshaped ideas for dense, low-error data storage and signal routing. Extending that toolkit to hopfion crystals in light could unlock high-dimensional encoding schemes, resilient communications, atom trapping strategies, and new light-matter interactions. "The birth of space-time hopfion crystals," the authors write, opens a path to condensed, robust topological information processing across optical, terahertz, and microwave domains.
They have been observed or theorized in magnets and light fields, but previously they were mainly produced as isolated objects. The authors show how to assemble them into ordered arrays that repeat periodically, much like atoms in a crystal, only here the pattern repeats in time as well as in space. The key is a two-color, or bichromatic, light field whose electric vector traces a changing polarization state over time. By carefully superimposing beams with different spatial modes and opposite circular polarizations, the team defines a "pseudospin" that evolves in a controlled rhythm. When the two colors are set to a simple ratio, the field beats with a fixed period, creating a chain of hopfions that recur every cycle. Starting from this one-dimensional chain, the researchers then describe how to sculpt higher-order versions whose topological strength can be dialed up or down...
Topological textures like skyrmions have already reshaped ideas for dense, low-error data storage and signal routing. Extending that toolkit to hopfion crystals in light could unlock high-dimensional encoding schemes, resilient communications, atom trapping strategies, and new light-matter interactions. "The birth of space-time hopfion crystals," the authors write, opens a path to condensed, robust topological information processing across optical, terahertz, and microwave domains.
Hmm (Score:3)
A crystal that extends across time... sounds like mumbo-jumbo probably with the sole idea to confuse readers.
Re: (Score:3)
A crystal that extends across time... sounds like mumbo-jumbo probably with the sole idea to confuse readers.
Yes, it does sound like a mumbo-jumbo to confuse readers [wikipedia.org].
Re: Hmm (Score:1)
thanks for tge Timecube link. lol
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect it's a poorly written description. From reading the article I believe that the light is transiting through the "crystal", and being continually replaced by the lasers that are necessary. I'm not really sure, because the description was so poorly written...or rather written to be exciting rather than descriptive.
ELI5 (Score:5, Funny)
I'm going to need an explain it like I'm 5 to comprehend this one.
I asked ChatGPT to summarize it and it asked me if I was having a stroke.
Re:ELI5 (Score:4, Informative)
It's really not all that hard. You know how in some small streams and fountains, bumps can form in the water? They're not really "there" because they are really caused by the underlying water streams colliding, rubbing, moving at different velocities; every time you interact with them, the water is completely different. And yet, in a certain sense they are there, because if you skipped a stone across the stream, and it hit one of these structures, it would bounce off. And would do so no matter how many times you did it. Physicists call these "quasi-particles".
These Hopfion's are quasiparticles. Except instead of being made of moving water, they're (typically) made of crystals made of Iron, Iridium, Platinum (just as one example) that have been excited by lasers. And like "real" particles, they can interact with each other (often in unique ways), making them able to do computation and store information.
However, despite the hype, doubt they'd be useful for any kind of long term storage. Typically systems depend on being energized by lasers constantly. Like bumps in the water when the stream dries up, they lose all their information when the lasers are turned off.
The birth of space-time crystal buzzword salad (Score:2)
I like mine a little underdone, still a bit crunchy.
Re: (Score:1)
Don't forget to sprinkle croutons and protons on it.
Death Stranding 3? (Score:2)
Re: Practical applications? (Score:2)
Superman (Score:2)
Let me be the first to say: Superman Fortress of Solitude crystals?
Re: (Score:2)
That's good news and bad news.
The bad news is that these new light crystal computers can only be used in sub-zero temperatures.
The good news is that global warming is not real, so there's hope yet that we could all freeze in the future!
Re: (Score:2)
The Fortress of Solitude was in the Arctic right? It gets pretty cold up there.
The AI Slop (Score:1)
Zenna Handerson (Score:2)