Submission + - Birth, life and death of a photon
Roland Piquepaille writes: "Two days ago, I told you that German physicists had built a single-photon server (read more on Slashdot or on ZDNet). But French researchers also have used ultra cold atoms of rubidium to record the full life of a photon. This was one of Einstein's dreams, but it was thought as an impossible one before. In fact, a photon disappears when it delivers its information. But with what has been described as an 'experimental masterwork,' the physicists have observed the 'quantum jumps' done by single photons for as long as half a second. This discovery should lead to important developments for future high performance computers and quantum computing — and certainly to the field of physics. Read more for additional references and a picture of how the team recorded the full life of a photon — not present in the short AFP article"