US military bosses want to build a PHOTON DETECTOR: Darpa issues open call to design a gadget that counts light particles.

Every object in the universe has a dual nature, according to quantum physics.

A photon, for instance, can act like a wave or a particle, depending on the situation it's in.

This means it's almost impossible to physically count these building blocks of light.

But that's exactly what the US military wants to do – and it has issued an open call for scientists and engineers to help it create an accurate photon detector.

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A photon can act like a wave or a particle, depending on the situation it's in. This means it's almost impossible to physically count these building blocks of light. But that's exactly what the US military wants to do – and it has issued an open call for scientists and engineers to help it create an accurate photon detector

Under the Fundamental Limits of Photon Detection Program, Darpa wants a device that can put out individual photons, according to a report in Engadget.

This could help every system that uses light, from medical scanners to night vision in the army, and even self-driving cars.

'The goal of the Detect program is to determine how precisely we can spot individual photons,' said Prem Kumar, Darpa program manager.

'[We want to see] whether we can maximise key characteristics of photon detectors simultaneously in a single system,' said Prem Kumar, Darpa program manager.

'This is a fundamental research effort, but answers to these questions could radically change light detection as we know it and vastly improve the many tools and avenues of discovery that today rely on light detection.'

Photons in the visible range fill at the minimum a cubic micron of space, which might seem to make them easy to distinguish and to count.

The difficulty arises when light interacts with matter. 

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Under the Fundamental Limits of Photon Detection Program, Darpa wants a device that can put out individual photons, according to a report in Engadget. This could help every system that uses light, from medical scanners to night vision in the army, and even self-driving cars

A cubic micron of conventional photon-detection material has more than a trillion atoms, and the incoming light will interact with many of those atoms simultaneously.

That cloud of atoms has to be modelled quantum mechanically to conclude with precision that a photon was actually there.

And modelling at that massive scale hasn't been possible — that is, until recently.

'For decades we saw few significant advances in photon detection theory, but recent progress in the field of quantum information science has allowed us to model very large and complicated systems,' Kumar said.

Advances in nano-science have also been critical, he added.

'Nano-fabrication techniques have come a long way. Now not only can we model, but we can fabricate devices to test those models.'

The agency is holding an information day on January 25th in Arlington, Virginia, to reveal more about the project. 

PHOTON BREAKTHROUGH COULD PAVE WAY FOR SUPERFAST COMPUTERS 

A theoretical physicist has been able to explain how to capture particles of light at room temperature.

In doing so, Alex Kruchkov has confirmed the existence of a ‘new state of light’ which could pave the way for advanced computer chip, laser and solar panel technology

Previously, getting hold of these particles - called photons - was only thought to be possible under extremely cold temperatures.

Light is made up of tiny quantum particles called photons. Physicists know that when quantum particles condense, they lose their individual identity.

Their different energy levels collapse into a single macroscopic quantum state, causing them to behave like clones and form a ‘super particle’ or wave known as a Bose-Einstein condensate.

A long-standing question in physics has been whether or not photons can be condensed like other quantum particles such as rubidium atoms.

In theory it should work, but the main obstacle to proving the effect has always been that photons have no mass, which is a key requirement for a Bose-Einstein condensate.

Mr Kruchkov’s mathematical model shows that photons can be captured in a Bose-Einstein condensate state, and at room temperature and pressure.