Researchers from the University of Washington have finally developed a method how to make laser refrigerate water and other liquids under real life conditions.
"Typically, when you go to the movies and see Star Wars laser blasters, they heat things up. This is the first example of a laser beam that will refrigerate liquids like water under everyday conditions," said senior author Peter Pauzauskie, UW assistant professor of materials science and engineering. "It was really an open question as to whether this could be done because normally water warms when illuminated."
According to the report of the News Weather Network, the researchers managed to cool the temperature of water to 36 degrees Fahrenheit by using infrared light to highlight a single nanocrystal suspended in the water.
Researchers chose to use infrared light because visible light could give cells a damaging 'sunburn.'
UW Today also reported that the UW team ran the laser phenomena in reverse to a material commonly found in commercial lasers.
The breakthrough in using lasers to cool off instead of its more commonly use of heating things can be very helpful in both technological and biological fields.
"There's a lot of interest in how cells divide and how molecules and enzymes function, and it's never been possible before to refrigerate them to study their properties," said Pauzauskie, who is also a scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington. "Using laser cooling, it may be possible to prepare slow-motion movies of life in action. And the advantage is that you don't have to cool the entire cell, which could kill it or change its behavior."
"Few people have thought about how they could use this technology to solve problems because using lasers to refrigerate liquids hasn't been possible before," added Lead Author Paden Roder. "We are interested in the ideas other scientists or businesses might have for how this might impact their basic research or bottom line."
