The argument has been ongoing for decades
Posted on 03/08/2025 5:21:03 AM PST by BenLurkin
A supersolid is a paradox of physics — a material that is both solid and liquid at the same time. This contradictory form of matter was first proposed more than 60 years ago, and, for a long time, people thought it was too nuts to actually exist. But we’re talking about the realm of quantum mechanics, and normal expectations should be thrown out the window.
In 2007, researchers at ETH Zurich and MIT unveiled the world’s first supersolids, starting with superflooding sodium and rubidium, respectively.
Now, an international team of researchers has unveiled an entirely new route to supersolidity, harnessing light-matter particles known as polaritons to create an exotic, flowing crystal.
In other words, this is a supersolid made not from atoms, but from light itself.
...
Instead of using ultracold atoms, they used laser light and a specially designed semiconductor. They fired a laser at a piece of gallium arsenide, a material etched with precise tiny ridges. When the light hit the ridges, it interacted with the semiconductor to create polaritons — quasiparticles (a collective excitation of a large number of particles that behaves as if it were a single particle) that are part light and part matter.
These polaritons were confined by the ridges, forcing them into a crystal-like arrangement. But unlike ordinary solids, this structure also allowed the polaritons to flow without resistance, exhibiting zero viscosity.
The result was a supersolid made entirely of light — a first in the history of physics.
(Excerpt) Read more at zmescience.com ...
Um, sooo, light is NOT a field after all?
It’s a floor wax!
It’s a dessert topping!
It’s both!!
That would make a nice lamp.
Collect it! Trade it! Eat it!
Hand me a light.
No, a Coors light!
Photon torpedoes?
Pics or it didn’t happen.
And, But, Also, A New Car!
Well, this will help in the development of our first Star Trek-like transporter….lol.
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t all matter a solid and a liquid at all temperatures but absolute zero. Even in a solid, the atoms are still moving, still vibrating, just very slowly compared to the “liquid” form.
But, most of an atom is nothingness
Breaking: Big brawl between baffled scientists who can’t decide whether it is a solid or a liquid... several injured egos resulting.
It’s two.
Two.
Two mints in one.
Bkmk
The argument has been ongoing for decades
Sounds like how the holodecks work.
I think you’re right. Matter is flowing, just vey slowly.
The article goes on to assert: "In other words, this is a supersolid made not from atoms, but from light itself."
The popularizing of science by media does a lot of "in other words."
ZME Science is ZME Science LLC in the UK, with a subsidiary in Romania. Their "About" mentions that they see themselves as a "ZME Science brand," to be further republished. But this article is itself re-publishing, relying on and showing URL links to Cosmos, New Scientist and Nature, with a further and interesting link to Advanced Photonics Lab in Lecce, Italy. All of them publishers of articles, except the latter.
Advanced Photonics Laboratory CNR Nanotec @Lecce Advanced Photonics Lab
That site links to the further abstract of a paper, as seen at Cornell University,
From the abstract, "we focus on the theoretical emergence of a second emission threshold...."
Supersolidity of polariton condensates in photonic crystal waveguides Submitted on 9 Jul 2024 (v1), last revised 13 Jan 2025
This is fascinating stuff, but still theoretical in that no application in the real world is being demonstrated. And it is not "made from light," but rather about looking for phenomenon "bearing strong similarities with the highly sought supersolid phase in Helium and ultracold atomic gases but with a novel mechanism typical of the driven-dissipative scenario. We then propose clear-cut and unequivocal experimental signatures that would allow to identify supersolidity phenomena in polariton condensates."
Spending the morning, reading more into this will be fun, at the "source" level of papers and such. The Italian site, in English, has a bundle of abstracts of papers. Deeper in, one must have paid access to some and log in to arXiv.org for others.
Thanks for posting. The "made from light" found in this secondary journalism is inaccurate, and amusingly sensational.
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