A new method of producing an ultra-bright light which breaks traditional laws of particle physics could potentially spark a technological revolution.
The ultra-bright light, a form of ‘coherent light’, is created byparticles moving in synchronyrather than independently. This synchrony creates incredibly fast, intense pulses that operate on a scale of atto-seconds – or one thousandth of a millionth of a billionth of a second.
While machines that can currently create ultra-bright light are miles long, scientists have now produced plans for a light source that can fit into a single room. The discovery could create a "mini-societal, technological and scientific revolution", the researchers behind the development toldBBC Science Focus.
In a move set to radically improve global healthcare andfuture technology, the new ultra-bright light machine could make X-rays and radiotherapy treatments cheaper in future, and enable the creation of powerful computer chips.
It could even create ultra-bright light that can probe the dense matter of stars and planets, deepening our understanding of cosmic behaviour, according to researchers.
How is ultra-bright light produced?
Normal lightsources, as emitted from lightbulbs or light fromthe Sun, produce a white light in which photons move independently. This ‘incoherent light’ is like “a loosely tuned radio, where we mostly hear static noise," according to the authors. By comparison, the synchronised photons in coherent light are more like a “finely tuned orchestra”.
In the study, published in journalNature Photonics, the scientists used advanced computer simulations to measure the unique properties of quasiparticles formed by groups of electrons moving in synchrony. Quasiparticles are created by a collection of particles acting together in a way that enables them to be treated like a single particle.
这类粒子表现出一系列intriguing properties, can theoretically move at any speed (even faster than the speed of light), and can even withstand the powerful forces that surround ablack hole.
The authors compare the motion of the quasiparticles in their experiment to a Mexican wave: the wave itself can travel around a stadium faster than any individual human could, but each individual participant stays in the same place.
Similarly, the scientists observed each individual electron making simple movements. But when they joined together, the collective motion combined to create an electron Mexican wave that can move faster than light. The whole system forms a quasiparticle that can be thought of as a single electron capable of emitting highly synchronised photons, and thus extremely bright light.
Existing coherent light sources are huge, with most far too large to use in most labs and hospitals. For example, the star-probing Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) in the US is over 3km (1.9 miles) long.
然而,新的研究表明,超快的coherent light could be produced in a single room.
The new discovery is part of a global effort to make ultra-bright light sources broadly available. The Nobel Prize in Physics this year was recentlyawarded to scientists who produced atto-second light beams.
The researchers behind this new study aim to do the same, but using a much more compact machine. They say that this would mark the beginning of widespread technological and scientific advances across the world.
About our experts
Dr Jorge Vieirais an Associate Professor of Physics at theInstituto Superior Técnico(IST) in Portugal. His research has previously been published in the journalsNature Physics,Nature Communications, andPhysical Review Letters.
Dr John Palastrois a Senior Scientist in Plasma Physics at the University of Rochester in the US. His research has previously been published in the journalsNature,Physics of Plasma, andPhysical Review.
Dr Bernardo Malacais a PhD candidate at the IST in Portugal. He is the first author of this study, and his research has been published in the conference paperLaser Acceleration of Electrons, Protons, and Ions VIIand in the journalPhysical Review Research.
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