Research report 2016 - Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter

How light changes matter: from a laser to a few photons

Authors
Ruggenthaler, Michael; Hübener, Hannes; Sentef, Michael A.; Appel, Heiko; Rubio, Angel
Departments
Theorie, Max-Planck-Institut für Struktur und Dynamik der Materie
Summary
The properties of matter, e.g., the conductivity, can be tailored with light. This can be done with a lot of photons that are part of a laser beam, or in certain cases only a few photons are enough. In the theory department of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Hamburg, researchers use both extreme cases to investigate novel states of matter: a laser allows theoretically generating hitherto unobserved states of matter and via a few photons chemical reactions can be altered.

For the full text, see the German version.

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