In a first in the history of physics, scientists have turned light into a supersolid.
“A supersolid is a counter-intuitive phase of matter in which its constituent particles are arranged into a crystalline structure, yet they are free to flow without friction,” the abstract for the study in Nature revealed.
“We actually made light into a solid. That’s pretty awesome,” Dimitris Trypogeorgos, from the National Research Council (CNR) in Italy, enthused. Along with his colleagues, he took a different route from prior research, which created supersolids in experiments using extremely cold atoms. Instead, they used the semiconductor aluminium gallium arsenide and a laser, as New Scientist reported, adding that the connections between the light and the material created a “polariton,” which formed the supersolid.
“To create their supersolid, the researchers fired a laser at a piece of gallium arsenide that had been shaped with special ridges. As the light struck the ridges, interactions between it and the material resulted in the formation of polaritons—a kind of hybrid particle—which were constrained by the ridges in a predesigned way,” phys.org wrote. “Doing so forced the polaritons into forming themselves into a supersolid.”
“To confirm that their system had entered a supersolid phase, the researchers measured the density of the polaritons. They exhibited a ‘distinct modulation’ in space, as if it were crystallizing. But they also observed signs of coherence — a sign that the system maintained its superfluid character,” ZME Science stated.
The advantages of supersolids include use as coolants for quantum devices, aiding the stability of qubits, which store data and perform calculations in quantum computing, use in high-capacity batteries or supercapacitors, or as high-performance lubricants in precision engineering, thus cutting down wear and tear on machinery.
“This is really at the beginning of something new,” Trypogeorgos concluded.
Trypogeorgos has co-authored many articles regarding working with light, including, “Condensation Dynamics in a Two-Dimensional Photonic Crystal Waveguide,” “Supersolidity of Polariton Condensates in Photonic Crystal Waveguides,” “Emerging Supersolidity from a Polariton Condensate in a Photonic Crystal Waveguide,” “Reconfigurable Quantum Fluid Molecules of Bound States in the Continuum,” and “Exciton-Polariton Ring Josephson Junction.”