14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists from France and China claim to have successfully slowed light to less than one billionth of its top speed.
For those unaware, light travels at about 300,000 kilometers per second in a vacuum, so there is little denying these brainiacs' achievement is nothing if not impressive.
In a paper published in yesterday's issue of the journal Optics Express, a publication of The Optical Society, the researchers explain that, in order to successfully complete this experiment, they took advantage of the fact that light traveling as a pulse is basically a collection of waves.
Each wave has a distinct frequency that is a tad different from the one of the waves in its proximity.
However, the waves can only travel together and, should one of them encounter an obstacle and “trip,” the others would have to wait until it catches up with them.
To slow down light, the researchers embedded dye molecules in a liquid crystal matrix.
The scientists say that, at first, they used a chemical compound to alter the shape of the liquid crystal molecules. Long story short, they turned them into helical structures.
When the dye molecules were added, they did not take long to nestle in the helical-shaped molecules.
The researchers then made a light pulse travel through the matrix. When exposed to light, the dye molecules changed their shape.
As a result, the material's optical properties were altered and the relative velocities of the waves changed to a significant extent.
Otherwise put, the scientists tripped up the waves that made up the light pulse and, since “wounded” light pulses cannot continue their journey until they reconstitute themselves, the latter had no choice except slow down.
The experiments carried out by this team of researchers are not the first of their kind.
On the contrary, it was not long ago when one other team of scientists went public with the news that they had succeeded in stopping light, and keeping it trapped for a full minute.