Taming The Speed Of Light
The speed of light is one of the fundamental constants of our universe. But that doesn’t mean that with a bit of trying scientists can’t make light faster or slower using a few interesting tricks.
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There is no question, in the vacuum, the speed of light is 299 792 458 meters per second. But that doesn’t mean you can’t ever alter the speed at which flies. For example, scientists from the University of Central Florida developed a new way of how to alter the speed of light. They can force it to go faster, slow down or even fly backwards. Their study was recently published by the Nature Communications journal.
This is an incredible success that could one day be used as a basis for advanced optical communication. The new approach simplifies data transfer and prevents data loss. And with the amount of devices connected to optical networks and the increases in data transfer speed such technologies are more than desirable.
The experiments that tried to alter the speed of light so far usually tried to alter it by having the light pass through materials or environments that would affect it. But Esat Kondakci and Ayman Abouraddy devised a way how to alter the speed of light without having the photons pass through any material making them the first who managed to do that.
Abouraddy and Kondacki managed to “quicken” light thirty times and also “slowed” it down to half its standard speed. And they even managed to make it fly backwards. They used a special device called the spatial light modulator. This technology is already being used in holographic data storage, in holographic display or photon computers.
To simplify what the spatial light modulator does – it works with spatial and temporal parameters of light allowing it to control the momentum of the light. This is the key to the scientist’s success.
Sources:
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08735-8
- https://phys.org/news/2019-04-researchers-develop-way-to-control.html
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