Optical this and photon that, opto-genetics, opto-electronics, opto-dildonics. Optical quantum computers made of crystals and light, the fastest computers you can imagine, tuned lasers that can bleep your brain through your retina and treat depression, and optical tractor beams, that's right, aka quantum tweezers.
This is not to detract from the renewed interest in the fundamental nature of time, by way of "time crystals", and of something I will call time lasers, because where there's crystals there's lasers, but that idea hasn't been discovered yet.
Laser attack blinds autonomous vehicles, deleting pedestrians and confusing cars
Oct 2022, phys.org
Expertly timed lasers shined at an approaching lidar system can create a blind spot in front of the vehicle large enough to completely hide moving pedestrians and other obstacles
via University of Florida, the University of Michigan and the University of Electro-Communications in Japan: Yulong Cao et al, You Can't See Me: Physical Removal Attacks on LiDAR-based Autonomous Vehicles Driving Frameworks, arXiv (2022). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2210.09482.
Researchers create an optical tractor beam that pulls macroscopic objects
Jan 2023, phys.org
Optical manipulation such as levitation and rotation: Optical tweezers, for example, are commonly used scientific instruments that use laser light to hold and manipulate tiny objects such as atoms or cells. We could also use laser light to create an optical tractor beam.
via QingDao University of Science and Technology in China: Lei Wang et al, Macroscopic laser pulling based on the Knudsen force in rarefied gas, Optics Express (2022). DOI: 10.1364/OE.480019
Deep learning-designed diffractive processor computes hundreds of transformations in parallel
Jan 2023, phys.org
Optical computers use light instead of electricity to perform computations, and now they can make massively parallel, wavelength-multiplexed diffractive processors.
via SPIE International Society for Optics and Photonics and UCLA: Jingxi Li et al, Massively parallel universal linear transformations using a wavelength-multiplexed diffractive optical network, Advanced Photonics (2023). DOI: 10.1117/1.AP.5.1.016003
A new type of photonic time crystal gives light a boost
Apr 2023, phys.org
While some physicists were initially skeptical that time crystals could exist, recent experiments have succeeding in creating them.
"We found that reducing the dimensionality from a 3D to a 2D structure made the implementation significantly easier, ..."
via Aalto University, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and Stanford University: Xuchen Wang et al, Metasurface-Based Realization of Photonic Time Crystals, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adg7541.
Optical switching at record speeds opens door for ultrafast, light-based electronics and computers
Mar 2023, phys.org
Imagine a home computer operating 1 million times faster than the most expensive hardware on the market. Light-based optical computing with optical transistors is a marked improvement from the semiconductor-based transistors that currently run the world.
Data transfer speeds exceeding a petahertz, measured at the attosecond time scale.
via University of Arizona: Dandan Hui et al, Ultrafast optical switching and data encoding on synthesized light fields, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adf1015
Recreating the double-slit experiment that proved the wave nature of light in time, instead of space
Apr 2023, phys.org
Now, a team led by Imperial College London physicists has performed the experiment using "slits" in time rather than space. They achieved this by firing light through a material that changes its properties in femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second), only allowing light to pass through at specific times in quick succession.
The team next want to explore the phenomenon in a "time crystal," which is analogous to an atomic crystal, but where the optical properties vary in time.
Co-author Professor Stefan Maier said, "The concept of time crystals has the potential to lead to ultrafast, parallelized optical switches."
via Imperial College London: Romain Tirole et al, Double-slit time diffraction at optical frequencies, Nature Physics (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-023-01993-w.
Post Script:
Topology also plays a big part in the coming light hype cycle -- you might know topology as Gödel, Escher, Bach's
Eternal Golden Braid, but it also has a strong link to the hyperbolic geometries of
hallucinogenic hero doses. They make quantum computers work better, so we're trying to tie light into knots to make mega-sentient intelligentities, faster.
Photonic hopfions: Light shaped as a smoke ring that behaves like a particle
Jan 2023, phys.org
Topology, hyperbolic geometry, toroids, skyrmions, and now -- new, very unusual, structured-light family of 3D topological solitons, the photonic hopfions, where the topological textures and topological numbers can be freely and independently tuned.
via SPIE International Society for Optics and Photonics, University of Southampton, and King's College London: Yijie Shen et al, Topological transformation and free-space transport of photonic hopfions, Advanced Photonics (2023). DOI: 10.1117/1.AP.5.1.015001
