German researchers, seeking a better way to measure the thermal capacity of Bose-Einstein photon condensates are developing an ultraprecise thermometer. This thermometer will calculate the drop in the “heat storage capacity of liquid water as it changes from gas to solid in photon gasses.”
Photons, if sufficiently cooled, will condense and the thousands of light packets in the gases will then fuse into a super-photon that has unusual characteristics aka the Bose-Einstein condensate. The researchers discovered that photon gas, in the transition phase between liquid and solid, changes abruptly in its capacity to store heat.
Researchers explain that “atoms can form Bose-Einstein condensates and become indistinguishable from one another;” in other words the atoms will take on the behaviors of a single, giant atom. Changing the heat capacity of the atoms during the phase transition from liquid to solid, has been able to be measured, but not with any precision. Now, measuring these atoms with the thermal capacity thermometer provides better outcomes.
The way heat capacity is measured is that the capacity of the material is determined by the energy needed to heat it by one degree. This is typically measured by using the temperature of the material before and then after adding a defined amount of energy. This, however, doesn’t work the same with the temperature of gas as it cannot be measured by using a traditional thermometer.
The only way to determine the temperature of a gas is to understand the different wavelengths of the light particles and the distribution of the colors within those wavelengths.
To determine whether their theories worked, researchers captured photons inside a device that consisted of two spherically curved mirrors and continually absorbed and re-emitted an embedded dye. The idea was that the device length was similar to the wavelength so a large frequency gap was created. The thermal equilibrium of the photon gas was kept at room temperature and measurements taken. They were able to calculate the temperature, the phase transition and the wavelengths of the photons as they made their transition.
Universe Kogaku designs and manufactures optical lenses for measurement systems, industrial, medical, high tech and electronic applications. Standard and custom lens assemblies are also available for scanners, CCTV, CCD/CMOS, medical imaging, surveillance systems, machine vision and night vision systems.