Scientists Just Turned Light Into a ‘Supersolid’: Both Solid and Liquid at The Same Time

zmescience.com ^ | March 6, 2025 | Tibi Puiu

[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.

[libertylover]

A supersolid is a paradox of physics — a material that is both solid and liquid at the same time.

Seems to me that would be more in the realm of chemistry instead of physics but the two are just like this: ||

[Tymesup]

Low calorie

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Solid or Liquid! What is a woman! Is the cat dead or alive! Baffling scientific questions

Is light a Wave or a particle? My answer.....I theorize that light is actually or preferentially 2 photons locked together in a helical spiral advancing in the same direction!

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Nifty! A Silica Aerogel container would be a bit too diffuse to contain it, and it needs that gallium arsinide defraction surface to create latticing...if that is what it what is happening!

Thanks for posting!