Scientists Trapped Light Inside a Metamaterial and Made It 10x More Magnetic

[Judi Lynn]

This could open doors to technologies we thought were impossible.

Headshot of Darren OrfBY DARREN ORFPUBLISHED: AUG 18, 2023



pixelparticle//Getty Images

Finding new ways to control light and magnetism will enable new technologies that we never thought possible.

Scientists from the City College of New York (CCNY) developed a way to effectively trap light inside a metamaterial, and in turn make the light 10 times more magnetic.

This breakthrough could lead to the creation of technologies like magnetic lasers that can leverage strong magneto-optical interactions.


Modern life is made possible by electromagnetism. Any piece of technology you use today uses some electromagnetic property discovered by physics over the course of centuries. Finding new ways to manipulate light—which is part of the electromagnetic spectrum—and magnetism will enable the creation of technologies (especially in the quantum realm) that we can’t yet imagine.

To explore new ways to control this fundamental force of nature, scientists from the City College of New York (CCNY) trapped light inside a magnetic metamaterial and made the material itself 10 times more magnetic in the process. The results of the study were published this week in the journal Nature.

The material used was a semiconductor layered with chromium, sulfur, and bromine, and is in a class known as magnetic van der Waals materials (named after Dutch theoretical physicist Johannes Diderik van der Waals). These materials contain attributes not commonly found in naturally occurring materials, and scientists are only beginning to understand their possible applications.

More:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a44843071/scientists-trapped-light-inside-metamaterial-magnetic/

[keithbvadu2]

1. I see.

[Wonder Why]

2. I swallowed an LED light and now all the famales are attracted to me.

Sorry, but as I am a scientific skeptic unless other scientists can duplicate it, I'll wait before swallowing any more light bulbs.

[Martin68]

4. I'm not sure why a "scientific sceptic" is. You don't believe in science, period? You don't trust

new research results in science?

I'm a sceptic when it comes to things like cold fusion. And the recent announcement from Korea regarding a super-conductor that operated at room temperatures sounded very fishy (and it turned out the be quite smelly). This announcement sounds totally probable, however. What led you to doubt its veracity?

[Wonder Why]

5. It has yet to be fully peer reviewed and duplicated, as I understand.

There have been far too many scientists, in their rush to be first, to fudge a bit.

Of course, I believe in science. If it is proven, that is a great advancement. As a skeptic, I want to see it proven before I accept it as true. Otherwise, it is just a fraud, overoptimism or an unproven theory. There is nothing wrong with theories but that doesn't make them scientific fact.

I'm a retired engineer and came up with a method in 1972 to measure the rate of detonation in explosives that the so-called experts at Lawrence Radiation Labs and Sandia Labs said would probably not work so had not tried. I was required to prove it and I did. All I ask for is that other scientists acknowledge that the work is proven fact. In that way, I am a skeptic.

[Martin68]

6. Thanks for the clarification. Sounds like we are on the same page.

[Wonder Why]

7. I agree.

[airplaneman]

8. Did you use Time Domain Reflectometry for detonation propagation???