Is there a known way (including theoretical) to store light? A simple demonstration would be something like a solar panel, but one that can also cast the sun light it collected later on. Another possibility would be a mirror that has a delayed reflection time, light a candle in the room for an hour, take it out, and the mirror continues to reflect the light. I’m looking for any theories, current research, etc that relates. The reason for storing rather than just delaying the reflection is because of the possibility of three-dimensional movies, movies that literally look as though you are watching through a window. So give your ideas!
Originally posted 2009-04-13 20:20:35.
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A hologram. It doesn’t store the light, but it stores a pattern made by the light.
You can slow down or even pause light, though:
Scientists slow light:
Scientists freeze light:
about 6 months ago in (i think) pop-sci, i read an article about some scientists who trapped a beam of light in a crytal, then caused that SAME beam of light to be emitted later. The SAME beam mind you, not a duplicate. I don’t rmember much more about it, but a search of the popular science website might yield some results.
It’s called a camera…fairly efficient light storage device…almost as efficient as the eyeball’.
There are special mirrors which are composed of electrically sensitive gels. When the gels are activated they cause any light waveforms inside them to be reflected coherently — that is, the reflected waveform is EXACTLY the same as the incident waveform, in reverse order and not in reversed order.
Of course, these mirrors can only reflect a wave that is brief enough in duration that it’s contained in its entirety inside the volume of the gel. They cannot actually store the wave either.
In terms of storage of optical data, the most common solution is a hologram. This stores optical interference patterns in a photographic plate, and when they are viewed with the same wavelength they were recorded with, they cause the observation beam to interfere and thereby reconstruct (in 3D) the scene that was recorded on them.
well theoretically you could bounce a beam of light inbetween 2 mirrors,saying they were totally parralel,do the last 100,000,000,000,000th of a nanometer
There’s that chemical they put in glow-in-the-dark toys that emits light after being under a lamp for a few minutes. Keep in mind that light itself is a mysterious substance that has properties of both an electromagnetic wave AND a particle. I do know that there was an article in the July 2006 issue of Scientific American that discussed research into materials that had a NEGATIVE index of refraction, or superlenses. I’d recommend checking that out.