To generalize the coveted advantages offered by quantum computers, scientists are exploring the physical limits of matter. Therefore, it is increasingly common to listen to new states of matter, away from the solid, liquid and gaseous classics. A recent investigation has announced that for the first time the phase of supersolidity has been reached, a hybrid between liquid and solid, in a set of polaritones, quasiparticles that combine light and matter.
The milestone of the state of supersolid “from light” was published in the magazine Nature. Project leaders ensure that getting a three -dimensional light “flowing” light in a semiconductor nanostructure without losing their form will allow to find new applications on quantum devices based on light particles.
How to catch light and use it as a sensor
Modern physics has shown that light behaves simultaneously as a wave and as a particle. Light energy is quantized; That is, it comes in fundamental particles known as photons. Numerous experiments have confirmed that photons interact with other particles, have shadow, and may experience exclusive phenomena of a wave system.
After discovering the strange behavior of the photons, the scientists tried to capture them and isolate them, as if they were jewelry in a box. They achieved it with the invention of photonic crystals that prevent light from spreading thanks to their structure meticulously manufactured. Today, there are even photographs of the shape of those particles.
Although catching light has been a feat, the researchers soon realized that a photon alone has a weak interaction with matter. For technological purposes, it was necessary to create a particle that would be better related. Thus the polariton was born, a quasiparticula resulting from the union between a photon and an exciton. Its main characteristic is that its behavior is influenced both by its nature of light and by its nature of material.
Polaritones only exist under certain conditions and while on optical platforms such as crystals and microcavities. Due to their special sensitivity, they are now proven to function as optical transistors in quantum machines. In traditional computing, the role of transistors is to amplify an electrical signal and function as current switches.
The enigma of supersolid
In physics, a “state” is a phase of matter with unique characteristics that can be described mathematically. Each state depends on external factors, such as temperature or pressure. Once the particles enter a state, their properties change in relation to others of the same chemical composition. A large -scale solid is a rigid material, but at microscale it is a set of particles ordered in a network. If those same molecules are messy or excited, the material becomes liquid or even gaseous.
The supersolida phase has been in physicists’ notebooks for almost 50 years, and only recently could be found of its existence. In this counterintuitive state, the particles that constitute a material flow without friction on an environment, although they maintain a rigid crystalline structure, typical of solids. Until now, it had only been achieved by the supersolida phase in helium ultrafrÃas condensed particles. Now, a team of scientists has achieved that exotic state using a polaritones condensate inside a photonic glass.
“This work not only demonstrates the observation of a supersolide phase on a photonic platform, but also paves the path for the exploration of the quantum phases of the subject in systems outside the balance. This is particularly significant because this approach has the potential to close the gap between fundamental science and practical applications,” said Daniele Sanvitto, one of the main authors of the study.
#supersolid #strange #state #matter #particle #light #matter
