A team of US engineers has produced an optical photonic device that can change the appearance of light to any colour desired.

To make this happen, the team from Stanford University in California adjusted the frequencies of individual photons contained in the light via modulators within the device according to an article on New Atlas.

The device contains low-loss wire. When the photons make their way through the wire, they move into a series of rings that host the modulators which effectively change their frequency and thus the overall colour of the light.  

The Stanford team hope that the device could be of use in the fields of quantum computing and AI in the future.

“It’s very versatile. The engineer can control the frequencies and proportions very accurately and a wide variety of transformations are possible. It puts new power in the engineer’s hands. How they will use it is up to them,” said Shanhui Fan, who was a senior author of the study.