Chinese scientists’ crystal ball foretells future of hack-proof data
- Experiment traps light in crystal for an hour, smashing the previous record of about a minute, set in Germany
- The method used could enable sensitive information to be transported securely
The crystal could be kept in a device about the size of a suitcase, and transported. If someone opened the device without a key, the light – and the sensitive information it carried – would be destroyed.
The technology would offer unprecedented security with the potential to “extend the communication distance to global scale”, said Professor Li Chuanfeng of the University of Science and Technology of China, in Hefei. Li was lead author of the paper, published in journal Nature Communications on Sunday.
Light is a particle of energy without mass, and it travels faster than anything in Einstein’s universe. For decades, physicists around the world have tried all kinds of ways to slow it down. Showering extremely cold atoms on a beam of light, for instance, could slow it to 60km/h (37mph).
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But even at the most gentle pace, the elusive light particles were still extremely difficult to capture and store. The previous best attempt, by a German team eight years ago, kept them alive for only about a minute.