India, March 14 -- In a breakthrough, Italian scientists have successfully "frozen" light, demonstrating that it can behave as a supersolid - a rare state of matter that exhibits both solid-like structure and frictionless flow. The discovery, recently published in 'Nature', marks a significant milestone in quantum physics and could revolutionize future applications in quantum computing and optical technologies.

A supersolid is an exotic phase of matter that simultaneously possesses the rigidity of a solid and the ability to flow like a superfluid. Until now, supersolidity had only been observed in Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), a state of matter formed when a group of bosons is cooled to near absolute zero, causing them to occupy the ...