Scientists invent way to convert light into matter

Physicists at the Blackett Physics Laboratory at Imperial College London say they have come up with a way to make matter from light in a laboratory. For a long time, scientists thought that this was not possible.

The British worked out a way to test the theory of Gregory Breit and John Wheeler from 1934 in practice. They suggested that it is possible to convert light into matter by colliding two photons. This creates an electron and a positron, two opposite particles.

Breit and Wheeler’s theoretical calculations turned out to be correct, but the scientists said at the time they didn’t expect the prediction could ever be demonstrated in a lab. Previous experiments required adding massive particles with a high energy.

The physicists at the Blackett Physics Laboratory, who normally work on energy from nuclear fusion, now say in Nature that there is a way to test Breit and Wheeler’s theory. They want to use existing technology to build a so-called ‘photon-photon collider’ that could convert light directly into matter. With this they want to simulate the first hundred seconds of the existence of the universe after the Big Bang.

For the experiment, the scientists first want to use an extremely powerful high-intensity laser to accelerate electrons to nearly the speed of light. They then aim the electrons at a gold plate to create a street of photons, which is said to contain a billion times more energy than visible light.

The second step consists of firing the high-energy laser at the inside of a very small gold can, called a hohlraum. In this way, a heat radiation field is created that generates light that resembles the light that comes from stars.

Finally, the scientists want to send the photon beam they created with the gold plate through the center of the gold can. In this way, the photons from both sources collide and form electrons and positrons. That process would be observable if the electrons and positrons come out of the hohlraum.

Lead researcher Oliver Pike believes the experiment is one of the ‘purest manifestations of E=mc²’. The researchers expect the study to be completed within a year. Some places around the world have the necessary technology to conduct the experimental research, such as Rochester in New York and Aldermaston in the United Kingdom. There are the Omega and Orion lasers respectively.