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<\/div>Hitting certain crystals with lasers makes them produce quantum light<\/p>\n
Jaka Korenjak<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n
Creating quantum light just became easier thanks to liquid crystals like the ones found in television screens.<\/p>\n
Light with quantum properties is crucial for many future technologies<\/a>. Entangled particles within such light could help produce quantum communications networks<\/a> to support an unhackable internet or quantum imaging techniques for biomedicine. Matja\u017e Humar<\/a> at Jo\u017eef Stefan Institute in Slovenia says that despite these advanced applications, the methods for making quantum light have barely changed for six decades \u2013 until now. He and his colleagues devised a way to create it with liquid crystals.<\/p>\n Team member Vitaliy Sultanov<\/a> at the Max Planck Institute in Germany says traditionally, researchers hit special crystals with lasers<\/a> to make them emit quantum light. With this technique, the structure of a crystal determines the properties of the light it emits, which then determines how it can be used. The only way to change these properties is to re-do the experiment with a new crystal, which is costly, time-consuming and impractical.<\/p>\n To circumvent this, the researchers used a liquid crystal, a substance made of rod-shaped molecules that can both slosh around like a liquid and assume special arrangements like a more conventional crystal. By exposing a liquid crystal to electric fields, they could adjust its structure \u2013 and therefore the properties of quantum light it emitted when shot with lasers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIn this regard, liquid crystal is the perfect material,\u201d says Sultanov.<\/p>\n \n