Why are photons the focus at Hamamatsu Photonics?
We believe that light, and thus photonics, holds the key to creating new industries in the future.
Light is what nestles deeply into the molecules that make up matter, and makes it possible for matter to be what it is. Although its roots extend deeply into the origins of the world we live in, there's still much that we don't know about light. The knowledge that we gain in our quest for understanding will undoubtedly reveal, little by little, the "landscape" of our world in the most quintessential meaning of the word. In our pursuit of light, we at Hamamatsu Photonics are building a foothold for exploring what is still unknown to mankind, and for creating new industries
for the future.
Photons nestle inside the electrons revolving around a nucleus (protons) and control the path of the electrons. |
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Light is the glue that holds matter together.
Molecules consist of a nucleus of protons and neutrons, with electrons revolving around that nucleus. Hydrogen atoms, to take just one example, have a nucleus that consists of a single proton. Protons are positive, while electrons are negative, so if the laws of nature are followed, the positive and negative will attract each other and the molecule will collapse. What keeps that from happening in this case is the photons nestling within the electrons and controlling their path. Molecules are the basic unit that make up everything in the universe, and light is what makes
it possible for them to maintain their form. Put differently, it's conceivable that controlling light would mean being able to recreate matter from its very roots, and might give us the ability to create entirely new forms of matter. |
Light has both a wave nature and a particle nature.
At times, light takes on the characteristics of the photons embedded in the electrons within it as particles. At other times, it exemplifies the characteristics of waves in the form of interference. Light has a curious presence in which the features of both particles and waves play a part. Because of its particle characteristics, it should be possible to identify individual photons in light, and yet, because of its wave characteristics, light also exists as continuous waves that can be broken down into the most infinite of time units. Modern photonics is just beginning
to offer proof of that statement. Using both of those characteristics of light, as wave matter and at the same time as particle matter, we are finding more and more ways to put light to work.
Light spreads far beyond the visible range.
The light that we can see is visible light within a wavelength region of 0.4 to 0.7 micrometers. This region corresponds to the seven colors of the rainbow, and on the short wavelength side (the outside edge that is purple), we find ultraviolet rays, x-rays, and γ rays, while on the long wavelength side (the other outside edge that is red), we find near infrared rays, far infrared rays, and radio waves. A wide range of wavelength regions that mankind has never seen exist in light, and this is one reason that our knowledge of light is still so limited. Hamamatsu Photonics
has developed a number of sensors capable of capturing light beyond the range of the naked eye, and these sensors provide an "eye" that gives people a glimpse into light beyond the visible range.
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