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Physicists Say They've Created a Device That Generates 'Negative Mass'

Physicists have created what they say is the first device that's capable of generating particles that behave as if they have negative mass. The device generates a strange particle that's half-light/half-matter, and as if that isn't cool enough, it could also be the foundation for a new kind of laser that could operate on far less energy than current technologies.

This builds on recent theoretical work on the behaviour of something called a polariton, which appears to behave as if it has negative mass – a mind-blowing property that sees objects move towards the force pushing it, instead of being pushed away.

Now physicists from the University of Rochester have created a device that allows them to actually create these polaritons at room temperature. They do this by manipulating captured photons and combine them with a kind of quasi-particle called an exciton to make something half-light/half-matter that some scientists affectionately refer to as 'magic dust'.

This alone is "interesting and exciting from a physics perspective," says quantum physicist Nick Vamivakas from Rochester's Institute of Optics. "But it also turns out the device we've created presents a way to generate laser light with an incrementally small amount of power."

Anomalous dispersion of microcavity trion-polaritons (open, DOI: 10.1038/nphys4303) (DX)

Previously: Physicists Create 'Negative Mass'

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