The smarty pants from Harvard and MIT fooled around with some photos and managed to get them to clump together to form a molecule. It is one that is unlike any other matter. And it is something similar to a light saber.

Say what? That's crazy! Lasers were used to discover a new form of matter and the experiment was conducted by Harvard physics professor Mikhail Lukin and MIT physics professor Vladan Vuletic who blasted photons through a cloud of rubidium atoms. When more than one photon was sent in at a time, the particles clung on to each other to form a molecule.

"It's not an in-apt analogy to compare this to light sabers," said Lukin (Skywalker?) in a press release. "When these photons interact with each other, they're pushing against and deflect each other. The physics of what's happening in these molecules is similar to what we see in the movies."

The phenomenon they were witnessing is known as the Rydberg blockade, and the rule states that atoms neighboring an atom that's been excited by a passing photon cannot be excited to the same degree as the initial atom. This creates a push-pull force between them and that binds the resultant molecule.

Still, don't hope for a real light saber anytime soon. But one can hope, right? That's what the Force is all about!  [Nature via PhysOrg]