University of East Anglia scientists have uncovered what they described as a “hidden property of light” that they used to make it twist, spin, and behave differently. Critically, the seemingly impossible feat was accomplished without any mirrors, exotic materials, or specialized light-altering lenses.
The joint UK/South Africa research team behind the accomplishment said their findings constitute a “breakthrough” that “overturns decades of scientific thinking,” while also demonstrating that light can exhibit chirality, enabling it to act like a left- or right-handed screw as it travels freely through space.
Although still in the lab setting, the researchers said the ability to program light by exploiting its natural geometry could have wide-ranging, “transformative” implications for data transmission, medical testing, and quantum technologies. Controlling light with this level of precision could also advance photonic computing.
Hidden Property of Light Offers Benefits with ‘Both’ Hands
According to a statement announcing the discovery of light’s hidden property, chirality is prevalent in the natural world. Many molecules come in left or right-handed. When such molecules are used in medicinal applications, differences in chirality can alter their effects on the human body.
Current methods for determining a molecule’s handedness use specialized forms of light. Unfortunately, those approaches require exotic materials, carefully engineered surfaces, or costly lenses capable of extreme focusing.
Dr. Kayn Forbes from UEA’s School of Chemistry, Pharmacy and Pharmacology, said their approach suggests that light can develop chiral behavior on its own, “You just have to prepare it in the right way.
“Most people think of light as traveling in straight lines,” Dr. Forbes explained. “But scientists can also create structured light – light whose brightness, shape, and direction are carefully arranged.”
The researcher also noted that light can spin as it travels, depending on its initial polarization. According to Forbes, this polarization-induced spin can be either right-handed or left-handed, which is “another form of chirality.”
One example involves light that twists as it travels through space. According to the researcher, each twist along the path can carry information. This natural property makes it a perfect match for high-speed internet, secure communications, and advanced sensing applications.
Using Light’s Natural Geometry to Program it to ‘Dance the Twist’
When explaining their discovery, the team noted that previous studies had found that interactions between light’s spin and twist were so weak that they could be detected only under extremely specialized conditions. Their work demonstrated that when light is prepared in a specific, balanced state, it can exhibit a natural spin as it propagates through space.
“It starts off with no spin at all,” explained team member and MSc student Light Mkhumbuza, who carried out key experiments. “But as the beam travels forward, spinning regions appear and separate out – almost as if the spin was hiding and then revealed itself.”
Instead of mirrors or exotic materials, the team said their work found that this naturally chiral behavior arises from light’s topology, or its properties that remain unchanged even when it is stretched or reshaped.
“To explain it, imagine a mug and a doughnut,” explained Dr. Isaac Nape, at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, “You can morph one into the other without tearing it, because they both have one hole. That hole is a topological feature.”
The team said their work demonstrated that light has a similarly hidden “topological fingerprint” buried within the arrangement of its polarization. When manipulated correctly, this property can enable scientists to control light solely by its geometry.
“This gives us a completely new tuning knob for light,” Dr. Nape quipped. “By adjusting its topology, we can decide how and where chirality appears.”
Laying the Foundation for a “New Generation of Light-Based Technologies”
When discussing the implications of their discovery of a hidden property of light, Dr. Forbes said their work could “lay the foundations for a new generation of light‑based technologies” by demonstrating how light’s behavior can be controlled using its own internal geometry instead of more complex and costly approaches.
“The implications are wide-ranging,” Forbes said.
Although still in the experimental phase, the team highlighted potential applications in medical and pharmaceutical tests, compact optical sensors, and emerging quantum technologies.
“This work could lead to simpler and more sensitive medical tests, especially in drug development,” Dr. Forbes explained. “It could also be used to pack more information into laser beams – boosting data capacity for communications, including future quantum networks.”
The researcher also noted that the observed effect doesn’t require fragile or exotic materials or precision-engineered surfaces; it could offer significant savings to science and industry.
“For something so familiar, light is proving to be far richer, stranger, and more powerful than anyone imagined,” Forbes concluded. “And astonishingly, this new behavior has been there all along — just waiting to be seen.”
The study “Topological Control of Chirality and Spin with Structured Light” was published in the journal Light: Science & Applications.
Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.