Scientists create a new form of light in breakthrough

Could pave way for everything from ultra-fast quantum computers to real-life light sabres

It seems that light sabres might not remain science fiction forever. In a groundbreaking study, a team of researchers from MIT and Harvard created a new form of light that could be used to build light crystals someday in the future.

What's more likely, however, is that the new form of photonic light will be used to power super fast quantum computers. The new form of light happens when three photons stick together, which is remarkable given that the light particles typically refuse to interact. For example, if you were to shine two flashlights in such a way that their beams cross, nothing would happen.

That's because the photons that make up the light don't interact; instead, they 'pass each other by,' MIT noted. In order to get the photons to interact, the scientists shone a weak laser beam through a dense cloud of ultracold atoms. This slowed the atoms down until they were nearly still, sending only a few photons through the cloud at one time. The photons exited the cloud bound together in pairs or triplets. This suggested 'some kind of interaction taking place among them,' MIT said.

It isn't the first time the researchers have observed this kind of interaction. In 2013, the same team of researchers found that they could bind two photons together. But they wanted to know if they could combine more photons. ' For example, you can combine oxygen molecules to form O2 and O3, but not O4, and for some molecules you can’t form even a three-particle molecule,' said Vladan Vuletic, who co-led the study.

The scientists also developed a scenario for why they believe the photons were able to interact. Now that photons have been shown to interact, they could be used in a variety of new applications. It's possible that one day scientists could make the photons interact in such a way that they can create real-life light sabres,' MIT said. If scientists can make photons interact in other ways, they could be used to perform 'extremely fast, incredibly complex quantum computations,' MIT added.