{"id":238823,"date":"2026-06-12T11:07:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T16:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/quantum-friction-causes-light-to-slow-down-nanoworld-movements"},"modified":"2026-06-12T11:07:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T16:07:22","slug":"quantum-friction-causes-light-to-slow-down-nanoworld-movements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/quantum-friction-causes-light-to-slow-down-nanoworld-movements","title":{"rendered":"Quantum friction causes light to slow down nanoworld movements"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/quantum-friction-causes-light-to-slow-down-nanoworld-movements2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A research team in Bochum, Germany has unexpectedly found that light can slow down movements in the nanoworld. This is due to quantum friction, a phenomenon that has been poorly understood until now. The findings are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-026-10632-2\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the journal Nature.<\/p>\n<p>Light is expected to heat particles up or set them in motion. However, the interdisciplinary team at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, has now proven the opposite. In aqueous solution, fluorescent carbon nanotubes move much slower once they are irradiated with light. During this process, the diffusion constant decreases with light intensity, an effect linked to direct coupling between electrons in the solid and the molecules of the liquid.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis discovery of light-induced quantum friction fundamentally changes our understanding of interfacial processes,\u201d says researcher Sebastian Kruss, who led the work with Marialore Sulpizi and Martina Havenith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A research team in Bochum, Germany has unexpectedly found that light can slow down movements in the nanoworld. This is due to quantum friction, a phenomenon that has been poorly understood until now. The findings are published in the journal Nature. Light is expected to heat particles up or set them in motion. However, the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nanotechnology","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238823\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}