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Light Storing Walls

 Walls that emit stored light at night
 
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Scientists from Stanford University have successfully stored light using semiconductors ([see link --admin]) combine this with an idea like LiTraCon ([see link --admin]) translucent building materials and you get walls that store light and then glow when it gets dark. I wonder how light switches would work...
—WhiteWiz, Mar 25 2004

Stanford University scientists store light http://www.trnmag.c...charted_021104.html
[jutta, Oct 04 2004]

LiTraCon translucent building materials http://www.litracon.hu/
[jutta, Oct 04 2004, last modified Aug 25 2008]

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       [admin: Use that little [link] thing to make links, don't embed them in your text (they mess up the layout).]
—jutta, Mar 25 2004
   

       According to the article, light pulses are "held essentially in place for tiny fractions of a second," so you probably won't get much reading done after night fall.
—AO, Mar 25 2004
   

       Use a solar-powered torch instead.
—kropotkin, Mar 26 2004
   

       Yeah, or cover your house with solar panels. Those *are* light storing walls...kinda.
—squeak, Mar 26 2004
   

       <obligatory Slow Light reference>
—DrCurry, Mar 26 2004
   

       yes i realize that they stored light for less than a second but i also assume that they were storing the light in something a LOT thinner than a brick.
—WhiteWiz, Mar 26 2004
   

       They say that light is slowed to "less than 10 centimeters per second." Even if they got it down to 1 cm/s you'd need a path length of 36 m per hour of storage. I suppose you could get long strings of the stuff and wrap it around the house a few times.
—AO, Mar 26 2004
   

       If you could make a strand of the stuff long enough that you could coil it up on itself and connect the ends before the photon got all the way through, could you store a photon indefinitely?
—Freefall, Mar 26 2004
   

       It'd probably eventualy hit an imputity or something...by-by photon.   

       However, the absorption/time is probably better than normal glass, making "my" 9 shaped light -storage weapon more efective.
—my-nep, Mar 26 2004
   

       [my-nep] your "9" shaped light weapon is no match for my "artist formerly known as Prince" weapon!!
—Mungo, Mar 26 2004
   


 

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