Meet the Dropleton, Weird New Particle Created by Scientists

Physicists in Germany and the United States have created an exotic new type of particle that they call a quantum droplet, or Dropleton. This is out of my area of expertise as it deals with Quantum Physics, but maybe some of the ATS gods have heard of this....What say you?

www.nbcnews.com...

This is interesting in the extreme........the ability to form new man made particles must give rise to a firmer grasp of the slippery subject of quantum physics...which reads like a sort of ZEN playbook to the uninitiated and the initiated alike at times.....
The world needs such breakthroughs badly right now I think.....
The ultimate building blocks of matter along with their secret qualities...such infinitesimal things could even give us the conquest of outer space........

This is interesting research.

The interaction of light and matter is essential to understanding life and the machinations of Universal objects and all therein.

Most interesting points of the research here.

www.livescience.com...

These dropletons behave according to the rules of quantum physics, and that means scientists can use the particles to investigate how light interacts with matter — a process also governed by quantum rules.

Because the dropletons are so large, in particle terms, they might also help physicists locate the boundaries between the quantum world of the very small and the classical world of the human scale, the physicists report in the Feb. 27 issue of the journal Nature.

"In a sense, [dropletons] are particles whose properties are largely determined by the environment, which makes them so exciting," Kira told Live Science in an email. For instance, semiconductors work best, Kira said, because the way their electrons are arranged makes it easier to excite them.

Since the dropleton is an artificial particle, containing a number of electrons, it acts something like a super-sized electron. That property means physicists could essentially modify the size of an electron for experiments. "This allows us to engineer … a man-made mass for an electron instead of the universal constant measured in free space," Kira told Live Science in an email.

Kira added that the work suggests several interesting experiments. For instance, the photons that excite the electrons to form dropletons become entangled with the individual exciton pairs. That means it's possible to study such interactions, an ongoing area of research.

In addition, because dropletons entangle with the photons used to make the quasiparticles, physicists can use them to study storage of quantum states — potentially useful in designing quantum-based communications devices in which such states serve as the bits of information.

"The basic physical understanding obtained from these studies can improve our ability to rationally design optoelectronic devices," such as fiber-optic communications equipment, he said.

reply to post by theabsolutetruth

[dropletons] are particles whose properties are largely determined by the environment

Wow. Kinda like genes. This has huge implications for systems biology.



F&S

reply to post by lostbook


In the midst of the other threads on ATS something as important as this sits, waiting for the casual reader to come upon it. Thanks for posting such an interesting topic, and I wish, as well, that I knew enough of the science to say something more constructive and advance the conversation.

From the OP source:

The discovery, they added, could be useful in the development of nanotechnology, including the design of optoelectronic devices. These include things like the semiconductor lasers used in Blu-ray disc players.

The microscopic quantum droplet does not dawdle. In the physicists' experiments using an ultra-fast laser emitting about 100 million pulses per second, the quantum droplet appeared for only about 2.5 billionths of a second.

That does not sound like much, but the scientists said it is stable enough for research on how light interacts with certain types of matter.

reply to post by theabsolutetruth


Very interesting.

Unfortunately, i'm more of a dreamer and 'what if' kind of guy, not anywhere near an ATS science god to fully appreciate this.

For example...i'm now thinking 'what if' these artificial electrons could be used as a kind of intermediary or even as a kind of resizable surrogate in quantum communications (teleporting perhaps), and would using them in such a way, negate the destruction by observation problem in quantum physics?

Hmmm...Star Trek, love it.

(if what i've just said makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, ignore it. If it gives you an idea that helps to bring us closer to 'Star Trek'...you're welcome!)

 

reply to post by MysterX


Sometimes 'dreaming' is where evolutionary science is.

I guess there are all sorts of uses for this sort of advance, in technology such as fibre optics as well as Quantum Physics experiments and expanding the parameters of current knowledge as a means of comprehending the bigger picture.

Exciting stuff!

Aleister
reply to post by lostbook

 

In the midst of the other threads on ATS something as important as this sits, waiting for the casual reader to come upon it. Thanks for posting such an interesting topic, and I wish, as well, that I knew enough of the science to say something more constructive and advance the conversation.

From the OP source:

The discovery, they added, could be useful in the development of nanotechnology, including the design of optoelectronic devices. These include things like the semiconductor lasers used in Blu-ray disc players.

The microscopic quantum droplet does not dawdle. In the physicists' experiments using an ultra-fast laser emitting about 100 million pulses per second, the quantum droplet appeared for only about 2.5 billionths of a second.

That does not sound like much, but the scientists said it is stable enough for research on how light interacts with certain types of matter.

edit on 27-2-2014 by Aleister because: (no reason given)

Thanks! When I read this I knew it was perfect for ATS.

Aleister
reply to post by lostbook

 

In the midst of the other threads on ATS something as important as this sits, waiting for the casual reader to come upon it. Thanks for posting such an interesting topic, and I wish, as well, that I knew enough of the science to say something more constructive and advance the conversation.

From the OP source:

The discovery, they added, could be useful in the development of nanotechnology, including the design of optoelectronic devices. These include things like the semiconductor lasers used in Blu-ray disc players.

The microscopic quantum droplet does not dawdle. In the physicists' experiments using an ultra-fast laser emitting about 100 million pulses per second, the quantum droplet appeared for only about 2.5 billionths of a second.

That does not sound like much, but the scientists said it is stable enough for research on how light interacts with certain types of matter.

edit on 27-2-2014 by Aleister because: (no reason given)

Thanks! When I read this I knew it was perfect for ATS.