
The nanolight revolution is coming - danielsiders
http://www.nature.com/news/the-nanolight-revolution-is-coming-1.19482
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JulianMorrison
First time ever that a science article contains glowy multicoloured bottles
that are actually pertinent.

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inlineint
> Now, however, other types of nanolight are on the rise. Some have a rare
> ability to absorb lots of low-energy photons and combine the energy into a
> handful of high-energy photons

Doesn't it violate the second law of thermodynamics?

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wew_lad
Adding two 1 eV photons in a two-photon upconverter does not give you a single
2 eV photon. Some of the energy of the upconverted photons is lost as heat, so
thermodynamically it's okay.

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inlineint
Yes, you are right. Each of these nanoparticles should also radiate heat
radiation or heat the environment near it in other way, but it is not clear
from the citation.

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taneq
Aww, I was hoping 'nanolight' referred to sub-microlight human-carrying
aircraft...

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novaleaf
You don't want to be injecting this into creatures you want living very long:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_poisoning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_poisoning)

If this really is a revolution, it makes me wonder if it will lead to
environmental/social impacts like leaded gasoline.

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nether
addressed in the article.

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novaleaf
i missed that part, thanks

