Light Molecules.
We all know that light is a massless wave_particle that doesn't interact much with its surrounding, not until recently.
Scientists fired a laser through ultracold "rubidium" atoms and the photons came out the other side in pairs and triples. The strength of the photonic bonds were measured based on its oscillation frequency.
In 2013, scientists fired blue laser at ultracold rubidium gas cloud and formed photonic molecules in pairs. The only difference is that now, the molecules were formed in trios! Scientists even believe that the bond of the trios are stronger than that of the pairs.
To explain how this works, scientists believe that as photons travel through the rubidium cloud, they are captured temporarily by the rubidium atoms, forming an atom_photon hybrid called the "Rydberg polariton".
The photon then travels through the cloud repeating the process and if two or more of this atom_photon hybrid come close to one another, the photons interact, thanks to their atomic partners. When they reach the edge of the cloud, the photons leave the atoms behind while still bonded together.
These photonic molecules have some properties, for example, they take on a tiny amount of mass, which is weird since photons are massless. They also travel slower than normal light photons.
The possible applications of these are quite interesting. It is possible for them to be used for computer logic gates, used in quantum computing to carry information because of their entangled state. In addition, if adding more photons to the molecules makes them interact stronger, it is possible that in the future, we could produce " light crystals"!
More research is obviously still needed on the topic.
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