Superradiance: Quantum Effect Detected in Tiny Diamonds:
"Superradiance" is the phenomenon of one atom giving off energy in the form of light and causing a large number of other atoms in its immediate vicinity to emit energy as well at the same time. This creates a short, intense flash of light.
Up until now, this phenomenon could only be studied with free atoms (and with the use of special symmetries). Now, at TU Wien (Vienna), it was measured in a solid-state system. The team used nitrogen atoms, built into tiny diamonds that can be coupled with microwave radiation. The results have now been published in the journal Nature Physics.
[...] "When the atom absorbs energy, it is shifted into a so-called excited state. When it returns to a lower energy state, the energy is released again in the form of a photon. This usually happens randomly, at completely unpredictable points in time," says Johannes Majer[...]. However, if several atoms are located close to each other, an interesting quantum effect can occur: one of the atoms emits a photon (spontaneously and randomly), thereby affecting all other excited atoms in its neighborhood. Many of them release their excess energy at the same moment, producing an intense flash of quantum light. This phenomenon is called "superradiance."
"Unfortunately, this effect cannot be directly observed with ordinary atoms," says Andreas Angerer, first author of the study. "Super radiance is only possible if you place all the atoms in an area that is significantly smaller than the wavelength of the photons." So you would have to focus the atoms to less than 100 nanometers -- and then, the interactions between the atoms would be so strong that the effect would no longer be possible.
One solution to this problem is using a quantum system that Majer and his team have been researching for years: tiny defects built into diamonds. While ordinary diamonds consist of a regular grid of carbon atoms, lattice defects have been deliberately incorporated into the diamonds in Majer's lab. At certain points, instead of a carbon atom, there is a nitrogen atom, and the adjacent point in the diamond lattice is unoccupied.
[...] Just like ordinary atoms, these diamond defects can also be switched into an excited state -- but this is achieved with photons in the microwave range, with a very large wavelength. "Our system has the decisive advantage that we can work with electromagnetic radiation that has a wavelength of several centimeters -- so it is no problem to concentrate the individual defect sites within the radius of one wavelength," explains Andreas Angerer.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @09:02PM (4 children)
Help me, Soylent. I'm a poor millennial dude who drives a Lyft to pay my student loams and I can't afford flagship diamond features to attract a girlfriend. Is there a mid-range diamond you could recommend me?
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Wednesday September 05 2018, @09:06PM
Give her a brown... excuse me, a chocolate diamond [wikipedia.org]. Preferred shades: Ubuntu and Zune.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday September 05 2018, @09:20PM (1 child)
Accept being one of the slum-people in cyberpunk stories continually strung out on the newest cyberdrugs, not one of the neo-transhumanists with glowing jewelry and quantum computing t-shirts.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 05 2018, @09:24PM
Give me anti-aging [wikipedia.org], bread [wikipedia.org], and circuses [wikipedia.org]. Or give me death.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @10:31PM
If you're a Lyft or Uber driver, no need for a girlfriend... just rape your passengers.