Storing a Picture on One Photon

Posted by Anita in Science & Tech on January 20, 2007 at 3:41 pm


Before and After Image on a Photon

Scientists at the University of Rochester have figured out a way to store entire images on a single photon. From the article:

“It sort of sounds impossible, but instead of storing just ones and zeros, we’re storing an entire image,” says John Howell, associate professor of physics and leader of the team that created the device, which is revealed in today’s online issue of the journal Physical Review Letters. “It’s analogous to the difference between snapping a picture with a single pixel and doing it with a camera—this is like a 6-megapixel camera.”

link via Washington post


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COMMENT

7 comments to "Storing a Picture on One Photon"

  1. Christian
    January 20th, 2007 at 9:13 pm

    you are (UR) what? what are we?
    for all of us.
    just like planting the U.S. (US) flag on the moon..no?
    for all that its worth
    vanity photons. oh yeh!

  2. Anita
    January 21st, 2007 at 12:21 am

    Hey Christian - UR = University of Rochester

    ;)

  3. Alex
    January 21st, 2007 at 3:36 am

    This is very weird - how does a single photon "remember" all that image?

  4. damian
    January 21st, 2007 at 7:47 am

    this is not storage the MASK 'holds' the info. the single photon part is simply to illustrate that they didn't need high light levels just to get the light to EXIT.

  5. smp
    January 21st, 2007 at 8:48 am

    how do you 'lens' a single photon?

  6. A Grue Not Here
    January 21st, 2007 at 10:20 am

    Yes, they've worked out how to store a hundred low-res images like that one in a block the size of a hard drive.

    there's a way to go yet before you'll need to buy an SATA to optical converter.

  7. Jason
    January 22nd, 2007 at 5:03 pm

    heh

    We're in ur photonz, storing ur imagez.


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