The team at the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering used a technique they pioneered to stop and control light from a laser, manipulating electrons in a crystal cooled to a chilly -270 degrees Celcius. The unprecedented efficiency and accuracy of the system allows the delicate quantum nature of the light to be stored, manipulated, and recalled.
“Light entering the crystal is slowed all the way to a stop, where it remains until we let it go again,” explains lead researcher Morgan Hedges. “When we do let it go, we get out essentially everything that went in as a three-dimensional hologram, accurate right down to the last photon.
“Because of the inherent uncertainty in quantum mechanics, some of the information in this light will be lost the moment it is measured, making it a read-once hologram. Quantum mechanics guarantees this information can only be read once, making it perfect for secure communication.”
The same efficient and accurate qualities make the memory a leading prospect for quantum computing, which has the potential to be many times faster and more powerful than contemporary computing.
In addition, the researchers say the light storage will allow tests of fundamental physics, such as how the bizarre phenomenon of quantum entanglement interacts with of the theory of relativity.
http://news.anu.edu.au/?p=2216
Frozen light
Frozen light
This may make sense to someone...
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Frozen light
They're saying they can freeze a copy of a moment in time ...but then again a Polaroid can do that too.
Re: Frozen light
The way I see it is if they perfect it, if you have a secret and you want to tell someone about it you can and it will still be a secret.
Of course if someone else reads it before you they will know the secret.
Although you will know the line has been tapped...
Of course if someone else reads it before you they will know the secret.
Although you will know the line has been tapped...
Sometimes it seems as though one has to cross the line just to figger out where it is
Re: Frozen light
The article reads like some research people want to raise some research money.
A quantum computer indeed. You still won’t know if the cat is dead or not.
A quantum computer indeed. You still won’t know if the cat is dead or not.
A sufficiently copious dose of bombast drenched in verbose writing is lethal to the truth.
Re: Frozen light
Kin 'lectricity be frozun?
[yannow, so you can use it later, like at Bob Jones University?]
[yannow, so you can use it later, like at Bob Jones University?]
Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.
yrs,
rubato
Re: Frozen light
“Because of the inherent uncertainty in quantum mechanics, some of the information in this light will be lost the moment it is measured, making it a read-once hologram. Quantum mechanics guarantees this information can only be read once, making it perfect for secure communication.”
I'm not sure why this is the case (if it is). Quantume mechanics teaches that measurement at a quantum level is always subject to an uncertainty which will affect the measurement of the position and energy of any wave/particle (Heisenberg's uncvertainty Principle), and that the mere act of such measurement can disturb this. However, for the released light to carry an intelligible message, i will presume that it could be read through the position/energy uncertainty. I fail to see why the mere reading of the "hologram" will necessarily make the image subsequently unreadable. Perhaps it could be designed to be so, but I fail to see how quantum mchanic gurantees it.
I'm not sure why this is the case (if it is). Quantume mechanics teaches that measurement at a quantum level is always subject to an uncertainty which will affect the measurement of the position and energy of any wave/particle (Heisenberg's uncvertainty Principle), and that the mere act of such measurement can disturb this. However, for the released light to carry an intelligible message, i will presume that it could be read through the position/energy uncertainty. I fail to see why the mere reading of the "hologram" will necessarily make the image subsequently unreadable. Perhaps it could be designed to be so, but I fail to see how quantum mchanic gurantees it.