It would take a foolhardy physicist to dare attempt to break the laws of thermodynamics. But it turns out that there may be ways to bend them. At a lab at the University of Oxford, UK, quantum physicists are trying to do so with a small lump of synthetic diamond. At first, the diamond is barely visible, nestled inside a chaotic mess of optical fibres and mirrors. But when they switch on a green laser, defects in the diamond are illuminated, and the crystal begins to glow red.
In that light, the team has found preliminary evidence of an effect that was theorized only a few years ago1: a quantum boost that would push the diamond's power output above the level prescribed by classical thermodynamics. If the results hold up, they will be a tangible boon for the study of quantum thermodynamics, a relatively new field that aims to uncover the rules that govern heat and energy flow at the atomic scale.
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