Like robots, 3D-printing, space, and a handful of others, laser beams are undoubtedly classified under the “cool” side of science/technology. In the latest laser-beam related findings, Physicists from the Australian National University have completed a long-standing challenge: creating and controlling the circulating currents of polaritons (vortices). The feat was accomplishing using a spiral laser beam, which the physicists built themselves, to create the mish-mash whirlpool of hybrid light-matter particles known as polaritons ( in case you were wondering what those were).
More specifically, polaritons are a hybrid quasiparticle made up of properties belonging to both matter and light; they created when photons are mixed with an excitation of a material. Controlling these particles could potentially contribute to the development of a new method for linking electronics with lasers or fibers-based technologies.
The physicists created the spiral laser by placing the beam through a segment of brass with a spiral pattern of holes. The beam was directed into a semiconductor microcavity, a tiny wafer of aluminum gallium arsenide, a material used in LEDs, sandwiched between two reflectors. The resulting vortices have previously only appeared randomly in pairs that swirl in opposite directions, stated Dr. Robert Dall, experiment lead, to Phys.org. “However, by using a spiral mask to structure our laser, we create a chiral system that prefers one flow direction. Therefore we can create a single, stable vortex at will.”
Source: Phys.org
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