Scientists use photons as threads to weave novel forms of matter

Date:
August 17, 2020
Source:
University of Southampton
Summary:
New research has successful discovered a way to bind two negatively
charged electron-like particles which could create opportunities
to form novel materials for use in new technological developments.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
New research from the University of Southampton has successful discovered
a way to bind two negatively charged electron-like particles which could
create opportunities to form novel materials for use in new technological developments.


========================================================================== Positive and negative electric charges attract each other, forming atoms, molecules, and all that we usually refer as matter. However, negative
charges repel each other, and in order to form atom-like bound objects
some extra glue is needed to compensate this electrostatic repulsion
and bind the particles together.

In this latest study, published in the journal Nature Physics, an
international team, led by Professor Simone De Liberato from the School
of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Southampton, demonstrated
for the first time that photons, the particles which compose light,
can be used to glue together negative charges, creating a novel form of
matter they named a Photon Bound Exciton.

Implementing a theoretical prediction published last year by the same
team, Prof De Liberato and co-workers fabricated a nano-device, trapping electrons into nanoscopic wells. They started by showing that photons
that struck the device with high enough energy extracted electrons from
the wells, an expected manifestation of the photoelectric effect, whose discovery earned Einstein his 1921 Nobel prize.

Prof De Liberato and his team then enclosed the device between two gold mirrors, which trapped the photons and focussed the luminous energy
close to the electrons, dramatically increasing the interaction between
light and matter. They observed that a negatively-charged electron kicked
out by a photon then remains instead trapped in the well, bound to the
other negatively-charged electrons in a novel electronic configuration stabilised by the photon.

This result demonstrates the possibility of engineering novel artificial
atoms with designer electronic configurations, dramatically expanding the
list of materials available for scientific and technological applications.

Explaining the significance of his team's discovery, Prof De Liberato
said: "We demonstrated how to use light as a sort of subatomic ziptie,
binding together electrons to create novel atom-like objects. Doing so
we broadened the catalogue of materials available to design photonic
devices. I look forward to see how the many colleagues working in
photonics will exploit this extra leeway to engineer novel amazing
devices."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Southampton. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Erika Cortese, Ngoc-Linh Tran, Jean-Michel Manceau, Adel Bousseksou,
Iacopo Carusotto, Giorgio Biasiol, Raffaele Colombelli, Simone
De Liberato. Excitons bound by photon exchange. Nature Physics,
2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41567-020-0994-6 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200817123036.htm

--- up 4 weeks, 5 days, 1 hour, 55 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1337:3/111)