OK, we’re looking way into the future here. But research in Israel shows that a gas can be used to store images. It’s never been done before and the work might eventually lead to a whole range of future media devices. Just don’t ask me what.

Writing with gas doesn’t make a great deal of sense immediately. If you write on paper, it’s a solid. So it stays there. Write in gas and it’s soon going to disappear. These scientists were able to store quite complex images in vapour for as long as 30 millionths of a second. Not really long enough for a decent advertising impact, I know. But that’s not the point. The fact that this has been done proves that the medium (gas or vapour) can be used to store information.

For the experiment, they created a warm atomic vapour made from rubidium. This absorbed a light pulse fired at it. Another light pulse fired at the vapour made it enter a quantum state. When this second light pulse was shut down, the light from the first pulse was stopped still, stored in the vapour. The researchers think the process will be useful in the future for quantum information devices. Information has been transferred by light through fibre optics for many years. If it can now be stored in vapour, it can then be used. You can’t do this with light as whatever you do, it keeps on moving. But once you’ve held an image in vapour you can then use it as the basis for something else.

Ads in clouds, anyone? Or in fog? There could be a commercial marketing application in a point of sale or event marketing environment, where 3D brand images are spookily held in a contained cloud. It’s a long way off, but gets you thinking.