Quantum lasers: Half light, half matter

New Scientist ^ | 4/7/09 | Richard Webb

[LibWhacker]

A new kind of laser could mean cheaper gadgets for all

Lasers might be pushing 50, but they are still the youthful pin-ups of fundamental physics. Since the first one was unveiled in 1960, the more apocalyptic predictions of how they might be used - as death rays, for example - have proved to be overblown. Their peaceful application, on the other hand, can be seen everywhere from cutting and welding to combating cancer and cataracts, to powering telecoms and consumer electronics, and has mushroomed into an industry worth $6 billion in 2007. Advances in the laser lab translate into gadgets in our homes at astonishing speed: think of the progression from CD to DVD and now Blu-ray technology in just a few decades.

[SuperLuminal]

"1963. 45 years. I was in third grade"

Heck. I was in third grade before WWII started. That's why I remembered it as SilverFinger and that a "C" rating meant it was a "commie" movie.

[Steely Tom]

Heck. I was in third grade before WWII started. That's why I remembered it as SilverFinger and that a "C" rating meant it was a "commie" movie.

Uhhh... Hmmm.

Did you work on something during the war that involved large amounts of silver and was of intense interest to the commies?

[SuperLuminal]

"Uhhh... Hmmm.

Did you work on something during the war that involved large amounts of silver and was of intense interest to the commies?

...during the war cold war......{:-)

[FreeKeys]

This creates yet more excitons which produce more resonant light waves and so on, until energy begins to cycle between light and matter so fast - in just a few trillionths of a second - that according to the rules of quantum physics it becomes impossible to tell in which of the two states it is stored.

If it doesn't light, does it matter?

(Sorry. Couldn't help it.)

[MHGinTN]

‘Turn on your half-light’