2022-05-04

So much modern technology already relies on light. But there's still more potential locked away in these beams. In a lab in Cambridge, this team says it's working on the next 'light revolution'.

许多现代科技已经依赖于光。但光束里还藏有更多的潜力。在英国剑桥的一间实验室里，这个团队表示他们正在研究下一场 “光革命”。

Dr Carmen Palacios-Berraquero, Nu-Quantum

First, we had lamps, then we had lasers, which completely revolutionised our lives and our technology, and now we may be at the cusp of the third stage in the history of light. We have single photon sources ­– devices that can emit one particle of light at a time.

卡门·帕拉西奥斯–贝拉凯罗博士      Nu-Quantum 公司

“一开始，人类发明了灯，后来发明了激光，这些事物彻底改变了我们的生活和技术，现在，我们可能就在光的第三个历史阶段的临界点。关键就是单光子源，即可一次发射一个光粒子的装置。”

And that is the key here – being able to separate off those individual light particles. I'll explain why that's important in a second, but first, here's how they do it.

单光子源的关键就在于能够分离出单个的光粒子。我马上就会解释这为什么很重要，但先来看看研究人员是怎样实现这个过程的。

Richard Westcott, BBC correspondent

On this disc here ­­– you can't see it – is