Materials of the future to control light in space and time

Ultimate materials that are capable of performing calculations instead of computers, thanks to the ability to control light not only in space but also in time: this is the new frontier that has just been opened by an experiment coordinated by Italian physicist Riccardo Sapienza of Imperial College London, published in the journal Nature Physics. The lead author of the paper is  Romain Tirole and the Italian Stefano Vezzoli is among the authors.

"This study has not taught us new things about light, but it is a fundamental experiment that shows how far we are able to control these systems," Sapienza told ANSA.
The study reproduced the experiment carried out in 1801 to show that light acts like a wave; while on that occasion the properties of light in space were measured, this time the researchers measured the behaviour of light in time. They did this by directing light onto a metamaterial, that is a material that changes its properties in femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second). Materials such as these "not only change the direction of the light passing through them but also their color", and they can only allow light to pass through at specific times, noted Sapienza. This leads to the possibility of also controlling the behaviour of light in time.