It’s well known that light can be described as photons and that photons have physical and material properties. This would in theory mean that even photons would be able to change phases; solid, liquid and gas. That is at least what scientists at University of Melbourne and University of Cambridge claim. The big news about this is that photons that are in a solid state repel each other, just like electrons, and this makes it a lot easier for scientists and engineers to control the flow of photons, and thus open the door to ultrafast computers.
The paper describes how they’ve been able to make photon to go through a phase change, to the solid phase, and in that way connect the physics of optics and condensed matter, which in turn has resulted in a whole new understanding for how light can be used in circuits.
The first article was published in Nature Physics 2, 856-861.
