National Research Council of Italy (CNR)

History

2025: Creating a superhard body out of light. This breakthrough will make quantum and photon computers closer

In early March 2025, specialists from the National Research Council (CNR) in Italy announced that they had managed to create a superhard body out of light for the first time in the world. This achievement is expected to bring the age of quantum and photonic computers closer.

A superhard body is a quantum state of matter that combines the properties of solids and liquids. Previous research suggests that superhard bodies have zero viscosity and still have a crystal-like structure.

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Фото: livescience.com

The formation of superhard bodies requires extremely low temperatures - usually close to absolute zero. Previously, similar bodies were created from atomic gases. The new study used a different mechanism based on the properties of polariton systems. Polaritons are composite quasiparticles that arise when photons interact with elementary excitations of the medium - optical phonons, excitons, plasmons, magnons, etc. The properties of polaritons allow them to condense to the state with the lowest possible energy, like some atomic gases. As a result, it becomes possible to form a superhard body.

In the course of the work, the researchers sent a laser to a sample of gallium arsenide, which was given special protrusions. When light hit the protrusions, the interaction between it and the material led to the formation of polaritons. This made it possible to obtain a superhard body. In the following, it was shown that the body is both solid and liquid. At the same time, it did not have viscosity. In the future, the authors of the project intend to continue research. Superhard bodies can be used for quantum computing, superconductors, next-generation lubricants, and other applications.^[1]

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