In the last video, "Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough: Simpler, More Efficient, And Cheaper,"
we reported that scientists of a spin-out from the University of Oxford
have developed a new technique to achieve nuclear fusion more directly and more efficiently.
The researchers said this innovative technology was inspired by a type of shrimp called the pistol shrimp.
Why did the pistol shrimp become the inspiration for this latest nuclear fusion technology?
What kind of physical principle is this inspiration based on? Here is a little further brief explanation.
As many people know, the pistol shrimp have an oversized claw that can be closed with a "click" very high speed.
The claw moves so fast that it sends a shock wave into the water and puts so much pressure on it that it rips into a bubble.
This shock wave interacts with the bubble, which collapses rapidly as it forms.
The water vapor inside was heated to tens of thousands of degrees, giving off a dazzling flash.
Physicists call this phenomenon sonoluminescence, which refers to the phenomenon
that when bubbles in a liquid are excited by sound, the bubbles implode and emit a very short-lived light.
The light emitted by the bubbles is weaker than that produced by conventional sonoluminescence
and cannot be seen with the naked eye. Biologically, this phenomenon has no significance
and is merely a shock wave that the shrimps use to stun their prey.
But in physics, it is the first example of sonoluminescence being used by living things,
so when this phenomenon was discovered in October 2001, it was called "shrimpoluminescence" half-jokingly.
Scientists discovered the phenomenon of sonoluminescence nearly a century ago, and the mechanism has remained unclear.
For instance, when the pistol shrimp is attacking its prey, it can spray a jet of water with a speed of up to about 100 kilometers per hour,
generating a force of up to 1500 Newtons, which is equivalent to pressing a 150-kilogram weight on the attacking prey.
Given the size and physiology of mantis shrimp, this should seem impossible.
Since the ability was first recorded, the scientific community has studied the shrimp to understand how it achieves this explosive power.
The phenomenon of sonoluminescence has fascinated scientists for decades
because the light released when bubbles in a liquid implode when excited by sound is no different from the energy of the sun's surface.
The exact mechanism behind this process is uncertain,
but it has aroused great interest among fusion scientists, exploring the possibility of Bubble fusion or Sonofusion.
Research published in 2002 stated that evidence of bubble fusion was observed, and the term was coined,
as shown in the diagram, from left to right:
bubble formation; slow expansion; rapid and sudden contraction; bubble fusion, energy release events.
The technology developed recently by scientists, a spin-out from Oxford University, belongs to this type of bubble fusion,
but the equipment used is a high-velocity projectile, so it is also called Projectile Fusion technology.
In a recently published research paper, the scientists showed that the sonoluminescent light particles
emitted by the implosion of such a single bubble have the correct characteristics consistent with quantum processes.
The new study found evidence that the process is quantum in nature.
The researcher explained that there are three kinds of light in the world.
They're either lasers, which you have to spend a lot of time and effort to make;
or they're thermal, which is the light we usually get from the sun or tungsten or hydrogen lamps, etc.; or they're quantum.
The team studied single-bubble sonoluminescence using three different settings,
which allowed them to determine that the photons were correlated.
Once analyzed, their emission looked quite different from what one would get from a laser source or more traditional thermal emission.
The researchers explained that the observed photons appear with a specific statistic.
"This specific statistic is called a sub-Poissonian statistic,
which confirms that the phenomenon is quantum in nature, purely Quantum, there is no classical analogy."
“We observed that photons are coming in a specific statistic.
And this specific statistic is known as sub-Poissonian,” the researcher explained.
“And this confirms that this phenomenon is quantum in nature, purely quantum, and has no classical analog.”
Lasers and thermal light sources are described using a classical electromagnetic understanding of light.
But sources with a sub-Poissonian distribution have no equivalent in the classical world.
So, this discovery is fascinating. This discovery is pretty exciting for a few reasons.
It provides insight into the mysteries still shrouding sonoluminescence.
But, as the team plans on investigating, it might also offer a cheaper and easier way to create a quantum light source.
The study believes that the photons produced are entangled pairs,
meaning that each pair formed is a single quantum state, no matter how far apart they are.
Their subsequent findings may reveal whether this is the case.
Suppose this were true, and sonoluminescence could be made smaller, producing only a small number of all entangled photons.
It could be beneficial in many other scientific studies requiring expensive lasers and lighting equipment.