The Chinese Academy of Sciences successfully extracts antimatter using laser technology—ultrafast positrons, placing it at the forefront of this field.
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2021-04-26
Since the 1930s, when humanity officially discovered antimatter, we’ve embarked on an 86-year journey of exploration in this field—starting from complete ignorance to gradually unraveling its principles, and now advancing to the point where we’ve developed technologies capable of extracting antimatter. Our primary research objects have included antiprotons and positrons. As scientists delved deeper, they realized that antiprotons pose greater environmental risks and pose significant harm to human health. Consequently, we’ve increasingly shifted our focus to studying positrons instead. Last year, the international academic journal *Plasma Physics* even highlighted China’s Academy of Sciences’ groundbreaking research findings on positrons.
In last year’s research, Chinese scientists successfully used laser technology to produce antimatter for the first time. The process relies on the interaction between a laser setup and a high-pressure gas target, generating an abundance of high-energy electrons. These energetic electrons then collide with a high-Z material target, triggering a reaction that, combined with bremsstrahlung radiation mechanisms, produces intense gamma-ray beams—ultimately leading to the creation of electron-positron pairs. While this procedure is highly intricate and challenging, China’s extensive expertise in laser technology proved invaluable, enabling the team to smoothly carry out the experiment and successfully generate an ultrafast positron source.
According to the research leader, the success of this experiment was largely made possible thanks to China's domestically developed positron spectrometer—a device designed to eliminate noise interference from antimatter, thereby enhancing the purity of ultrafast positron beams. China is also the only country in the world that currently masters this cutting-edge technology.
Currently, scientists from China and abroad are working around the clock to develop antimatter. This recent success means that China has taken the lead over other nations, becoming the first to master the technology for extracting antimatter—truly a remarkable achievement for our country. Moreover, according to scientists' analyses, antimatter-based materials hold immense potential across a wide range of industries, with aerospace programs and healthcare emerging as key areas of focus. For instance, technologies like positron emission tomography (PET) imaging—currently used in cancer treatment—are already leveraging antimatter principles.
Moreover, if antimatter could be harnessed for aerospace technology, it would dramatically boost spacecraft speeds—significantly enhancing our ability to efficiently search for habitable planets. For humanity, this would truly be a game-changer.
Source: NetEase's "Quantum Entanglement"
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