Quantum light is key to futuristic quantum technologies, but researchers have been creating it in the same way for 60 years - now liquid crystals, like the ones found in television screens, offer an easier way to produce it.
Traditionally, researchers hit special crystals with lasers to make them emit quantum light. With this technique, the structure of a crystal determines the properties of the light it emits, which then determines how it can be used. The only way to change these properties is to re-do the experiment with a new crystal, which is costly, time-consuming and impractical.
To circumvent this, the researchers used a liquid crystal, a substance made of rod-shaped molecules that can both slosh around like a liquid and assume special arrangements like a more conventional crystal. By exposing a liquid crystal to electric fields, they could adjust its structure - and therefore the properties of quantum light it emitted when shot with lasers.
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