Geek Alert — Radio of the Future?

The title of the article in ScienceDaily.com is what caught my eye: “World’s Smallest Radio Stations: Two Molecules Communicate via Single Photons.”

I’ve always agreed with the radio curmudgeons who say radio is dying, although I think it’s going to live a very long time yet before it expires.  However, technology continues to make new options possible.  If your local station lets you down, you already have lots of other choices online or by satellite.

This scientific breakthrough in atomic physics may not have real implications for radio but it’s fun to let your imagination run wild.

In one of the most basic proposals, a single atom or molecule acts as a quantum bit that processes signals that have been delivered via single photons… Scientists at ETH Zurich and Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen have now shown that one can even interact a flying photon with a single molecule. Among many challenges in the way of performing such an experiment is the realization of a suitable source of single photons, which have the proper frequency and bandwidth.

The article goes on to talk about the process involved in getting the molecules to communicate via outgoing and incoming photons.  Right now they are working at light frequencies, but who knows?  Maybe one day they’ll be able to work at the frequency of sound.  Molecular-level bandwidth?  Or is that impossible?  It’s not really about radio; radio is just an analogy, but what a great analogy.

The results of the study published in Physical Review Letters provide the first example of long-distance communication between two quantum optical antennas in analogy to the 19th century experiments of Hertz and Marconi with radio antennas. In those early efforts, dipolar oscillators were used as transmitting and receiving antennas.

In the current experiment, two single molecules mimic that scenario at optical frequencies and via a nonclassical optical channel, namely a single-photon stream. This opens many doors for further exciting experiments in which single photons act as carriers of quantum information to be processed by single emitters.

Hard to imagine anyone could be anti-science in this exciting day and age.