Photonics News: Pinging Photons Without Destroying Them
JR Minkel writes on Scientific American:
It sounds like a simple task: Count the number of photons or particles of light in a light beam without destroying them in the process. But in fact, it took 17 years to accomplish the feat, researchers report this week in Nature.More here.
A team at the École Normale Superiéure in Paris fired specially primed atoms through a pair of the most reflective mirrors ever built, gradually revealing the number of photons bouncing between their reflective surfaces. Their method provides a high-resolution glimpse of the eerie "collapse" of a quantum system and may be useful in developing future quantum-based technologies.
posted by Fergie @ 8/22/2007 06:32:00 PM
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