Hardlight
Hardlight is the name given to a category of materials made entirely out of photons. There are 2 main types:
Projector-based Hardlight, that is relatively strong, but requires a projector to make and keep. Think of hardlight shields from halo or hardlight bridges from portal.
Solid Hardlight, which only requires a photon condenser to make it initially, although it requires a specialized device to keep it stable for prolonged periods.
Properties
Material Characteristics
Photonic matter has no mass, but it would have weight because photons carry momentum. Projector hardlight is partly transparent and emits a large amount of light, but solid hardlight is not transparent and emits less light than projector hardlight. In terms of appearance, think of hardlight bridges form halo 4.
Life & Expiration
Projector based hardlight decays immediately when the projector is turned off.
Solid hardlight decays slowly and emits blue light. It can be kept alive with similar projectors.
History & Usage
Everyday use
Both forms of hardlight do not annihilate with antimatter, making it very useful in applications involving such.
Hardlight also forms the basis of many shield systems. It is very strong and has the added advantage of defending against antimatter based weapons. These are called hardlight deflectors.
Furthermore, due to its extremely unstable nature when solid hardlight does break, it can even be used as a weapon itself. Its high strength allows it to pierce armour. At this point it is rendered unstable and explodes into its constituent photons which scatter around the point of impact and melt anything near it. It doesnt need to be restored in weapons because of the short time it takes to reach the target. It does not decay enough to have an effect.
Hardlight is also commonly used by the HF as an electricity insulator. Thisi s due to the fact that hardlight has no electrons to carry while also actively resisting all electron flow. This gives it a resistivity many orders of magnitude higher than any kind of rubber.
XLPE, a type of insulation commonly used in cables in real life, has a resistivity of 1014 Ω.m.
Hardlight has a resistivity of over 1033 Ω.m.
Type
Metamaterial
Color
light blue, emissive
Density
None. Photons carry momentum but not mass.
Common State
solid (technically photonic matter)
Related Technologies
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