Newskollektion

QRM Images

Excitation Scheme

Rudolf-Kaiser-Prize

Julian

Julian Schmitt vor einem Photon-BEC-Aufbau

BoxImage

Andreas Redmann @ Science Slam

Steffi (or rather her finger) explaining the experiment

Experimental setup and origin of the fluctuations

View at the experiment: The photons are trapped between two mirrors, and interact with the dye molecules, visible by the orange fluorescence. From the statistics of the outcoupled light we can determine the fluctuations. The fluctuations result from the interconversion of photons and excited dye molecules and vice versa (Inset).

Photon gas in a box

The data show the spatial distribution of photons in a box, for a photon number below the citical photon number for condensation.

Correlations in a photon gas

Idea of the experiment: When increasing the number of photons (blue circles) the correlation length also increases (red circle). Near the critical point the correlation length diverges and gets larger than the system size. The photons then behave like a single "superphoton".

Dr. Kevin Peters

Wissenschaftspreis 2024

Preparing the cavity

Frank and Kirankumar fill the cavity with dye solution

Double Well

A double well potential for photons: Photons can poulate either the symmetric (low energy) state or the antisymmetric, high energy state of the double well.

Population

As expect for bosons, the population in the symmetric and antisymmetric state favours the ground state for large occupation, even as the splitting is smaller than thermal energy.