Star Wars Lightsaber May be Possible with New Ability to Stick Light Particles Together

We may just be one step closer to creating an actual lightsaber. Scientists have figured out how to stick photons together, creating the first ever "molecules" of light.

Photons are the particles that make up light, and don't behave like particles of matter. In fact, they can pass through one another and don't bind together to make larger structures. This means that something like, say, a lightsaber, would be impossible to build. But what if there was a way to cause photons to act like regular matter? That's exactly what scientists may have accomplished in their new study.

Getting photons to stick together isn't easy. However, a photon also has an associated electromagnetic field that can modify its surrounding medium. These changes can affect nearby photons and create an effective interaction between them.

The medium, though, is the important part. In this latest study, the researchers took atoms of rubidium and put them into a vacuum chamber. Then then fired laser beams at the rubidium to cool it close to absolute zero.

After cooling the chamber, the researchers then fired another, weaker laser into the newly created cloud. The second laser was weak enough that only a single photon at a time went in. The photons actually slowed down as they went through the cloud of rubidium. When the researchers fired two photons at a time, though, the photons exited together, acting like a single entity.

Creating photons that stick together may not seem like a big deal, but it has huge implications for quantum computing, which relies on quantum entanglement. Being able to bind and entangle photons could allow computers to use photons as information processors. In theory, the same process could also create lightsabers.

The findings are published in the journal Nature.

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