<p><br />Scientists have brought the fastest thing in the universe - light - to a complete stop for a record-breaking minute.<br /><br /></p>.<p>A minute may not seem like much, but in just sixty seconds, light can travel an incredible distance of 18 million kilometres - enough time to orbit the Moon about 20 times.<br /><br />"One minute is extremely, extremely long. This is indeed a major milestone," said Thomas Krauss at the University of St Andrews, UK.<br /><br />While this is not the first time researchers have successfully stopped light, it is for the longest duration.<br /><br />Physicists had managed to halt light completely in 2001, though only for a fraction of a second. Earlier this year, researchers kept it still for 16 seconds using cold atoms.George Heinze and colleagues at the University of Darmstadt, Germany, fired a control laser at an opaque crystal, sending its atoms into a quantum superposition of two states, 'New Scientist' reported.<br /><br />This made it transparent to a narrow range of frequencies. Heinze's team then halted a second beam that entered the crystal by switching off the first laser and hence the transparency.<br /><br />The storage time depends on the crystal's superposition. A magnetic field extends it but complicates the control laser configuration. Heinze's team used an algorithm to "breed" combinations of magnet and laser, leading them to one that trapped light for a minute.They also used the trap to store and then retrieve an image consisting of three stripes."We showed you can imprint complex information on your light beam," said Heinze.<br /><br />Heinze said it should even be possible to stop light for longer periods of time with other crystals, but the current material has been pushed close to its physical limit.<br /><br />The study was published in the journal Physical Review Letters. </p>
<p><br />Scientists have brought the fastest thing in the universe - light - to a complete stop for a record-breaking minute.<br /><br /></p>.<p>A minute may not seem like much, but in just sixty seconds, light can travel an incredible distance of 18 million kilometres - enough time to orbit the Moon about 20 times.<br /><br />"One minute is extremely, extremely long. This is indeed a major milestone," said Thomas Krauss at the University of St Andrews, UK.<br /><br />While this is not the first time researchers have successfully stopped light, it is for the longest duration.<br /><br />Physicists had managed to halt light completely in 2001, though only for a fraction of a second. Earlier this year, researchers kept it still for 16 seconds using cold atoms.George Heinze and colleagues at the University of Darmstadt, Germany, fired a control laser at an opaque crystal, sending its atoms into a quantum superposition of two states, 'New Scientist' reported.<br /><br />This made it transparent to a narrow range of frequencies. Heinze's team then halted a second beam that entered the crystal by switching off the first laser and hence the transparency.<br /><br />The storage time depends on the crystal's superposition. A magnetic field extends it but complicates the control laser configuration. Heinze's team used an algorithm to "breed" combinations of magnet and laser, leading them to one that trapped light for a minute.They also used the trap to store and then retrieve an image consisting of three stripes."We showed you can imprint complex information on your light beam," said Heinze.<br /><br />Heinze said it should even be possible to stop light for longer periods of time with other crystals, but the current material has been pushed close to its physical limit.<br /><br />The study was published in the journal Physical Review Letters. </p>