Lasers can have a cooling effect in quantum experimentsMike_shots/Shutterstock
In the strange world of quantum mechanics, nothing isn’t ever actually nothing — and now we have found that nothing, or the absence of a photon, can be used to cool things down.
One of the most common ways scientists cool things down is by using lasers. When particles of light, or photons, with a specific frequency hit an atom or molecule, it absorbs the photon and then fires out another photon with slightly higher energy, which cools the system overall.
Quantum trick lets you cool objects down using nothing at all
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