{"id":19433,"date":"2018-02-23T16:54:24","date_gmt":"2018-02-23T16:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ch.imperial.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=19433"},"modified":"2018-02-25T08:40:28","modified_gmt":"2018-02-25T08:40:28","slug":"is-h%ce%bd3-an-allotrope-of-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=19433","title":{"rendered":"Is  (h\u03bd)3 an allotrope of light?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"kcite-section\" kcite-section-id=\"19433\">\n<p>A little while ago I pondered <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ch.imperial.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=13987\">allotropic bromine<\/a>, or Br(Br)<sub>3<\/sub>. But this is a far wackier report<span id=\"cite_ITEM-19433-0\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-19433-0\">[1]<\/a><\/span> of <i>a molecule of light.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>The preparation and detection of dimer and trimer bound photon states is pure physics; probably considered by the physicists themselves as NOT chemistry. It is certainly true, as a chemist, \u00a0that I understood only a little of the article. But chemistry uses photons extensively in the area we call photochemistry. We represent photons as\u00a0h\u03bd, and hence (h\u03bd)<sub>3<\/sub>.<\/p>\n<p>This molecular light has some fascinating properties. One is that it travels around 100,000 times slower than the usual speed of light. Another is the estimate of the photon-photon binding energies, which are ~10<sup>10<\/sup> times smaller than in diatomic\u00a0molecules such as NaCl and H<sub>2<\/sub>. I await with interest to see whether this new state of light will achieve any interesting chemistry.<\/p>\n<h2>References<\/h2>\n    <ol class=\"kcite-bibliography csl-bib-body\"><li id=\"ITEM-19433-0\">Q. Liang, A.V. Venkatramani, S.H. Cantu, T.L. Nicholson, M.J. Gullans, A.V. Gorshkov, J.D. Thompson, C. Chin, M.D. Lukin, and V. Vuleti\u0107, \"Observation of three-photon bound states in a quantum nonlinear medium\", <i>Science<\/i>, vol. 359, pp. 783-786, 2018. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1126\/science.aao7293\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1126\/science.aao7293<\/a>\n\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n<\/div> <!-- kcite-section 19433 -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A little while ago I pondered allotropic bromine, or Br(Br)3. But this is a far wackier report of a molecule of light. The preparation and detection of dimer and trimer bound photon states is pure physics; probably considered by the physicists themselves as NOT chemistry. It is certainly true, as a chemist, \u00a0that I understood [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":5,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[2329,1436,2328,224,1395,2008,1441,1433],"ppma_author":[2661],"class_list":["post-19433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interesting-chemistry","tag-atomic-physics","tag-bromine","tag-bromine-compounds","tag-chemist","tag-chemistry","tag-halogens","tag-hypobromite","tag-oxidizing-agents"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Is (h\u03bd)3 an allotrope of light? - Henry Rzepa&#039;s Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=19433\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is (h\u03bd)3 an allotrope of light? - Henry Rzepa&#039;s Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A little while ago I pondered allotropic bromine, or Br(Br)3. But this is a far wackier report of a molecule of light. The preparation and detection of dimer and trimer bound photon states is pure physics; probably considered by the physicists themselves as NOT chemistry. It is certainly true, as a chemist, \u00a0that I understood [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=19433\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Henry Rzepa&#039;s Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-02-23T16:54:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-02-25T08:40:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Henry Rzepa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Henry Rzepa\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is (h\u03bd)3 an allotrope of light? - Henry Rzepa&#039;s Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=19433","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"Is (h\u03bd)3 an allotrope of light? - Henry Rzepa&#039;s Blog","og_description":"A little while ago I pondered allotropic bromine, or Br(Br)3. But this is a far wackier report of a molecule of light. The preparation and detection of dimer and trimer bound photon states is pure physics; probably considered by the physicists themselves as NOT chemistry. It is certainly true, as a chemist, \u00a0that I understood [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=19433","og_site_name":"Henry Rzepa&#039;s Blog","article_published_time":"2018-02-23T16:54:24+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-02-25T08:40:28+00:00","author":"Henry Rzepa","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Henry Rzepa","Estimated reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=19433#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=19433"},"author":{"name":"Henry Rzepa","@id":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2b40f7b9c872a4dc1547e040a11b6281"},"headline":"Is (h\u03bd)3 an allotrope of light?","datePublished":"2018-02-23T16:54:24+00:00","dateModified":"2018-02-25T08:40:28+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=19433"},"wordCount":151,"commentCount":0,"keywords":["Atomic physics","Bromine","Bromine compounds","chemist","Chemistry","Halogens","Hypobromite","Oxidizing agents"],"articleSection":["Interesting chemistry"],"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=19433#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=19433","url":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=19433","name":"Is (h\u03bd)3 an allotrope of light? 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