The Penrose-Zel’dovich legacyMore than 50 years ago, physicist Sir Roger Penrose theorised that energy could be actively harvested from a black hole spinning at extreme speeds.
He hypothesised that if an electromagnetic wave interacted with a sufficiently fast-rotating physical object, the wave would extract energy from the rotation and become amplified.
Instead of rotating physical matter, the researchers built a ring-shaped network of electronic resonators.
Broadband selective wave amplificationWhen researchers sent radio waves into the device, they observed the Penrose-Zel’dovich process in action.
Waves injected with the correct, matching rotational attributes extracted raw energy directly from the synthetic time-engineered rotation.
Researchers at the Advanced Science Research Centre at the CUNY Graduate Centre (CUNY ASRC) have successfully recreated a famous black hole physics theory in a laboratory setting
Published in the journal Nature, the study demonstrates that manipulating tailored materials over ultra-precise timelines can simulate the physics of objects rotating faster than the speed of light, providing a new way to amplify electromagnetic waves.
The successful experiment moves extreme rotational astrophysics out of the realm of pure math and into practical wave physics.
The Penrose-Zel’dovich legacy
More than 50 years ago, physicist Sir Roger Penrose theorised that energy could be actively harvested from a black hole spinning at extreme speeds. He proposed that if a particle entered the “ergosphere”—the region of space warped and dragged around by a rotating black hole—it could split in two. While one half plunges into the event horizon, the escaping half would break free, carrying significantly more energy than the original particle possessed.
Building upon this concept, physicist Yakov Zel’dovich predicted that the same phenomenon would apply to waves. He hypothesised that if an electromagnetic wave interacted with a sufficiently fast-rotating physical object, the wave would extract energy from the rotation and become amplified.
Until now, testing Zel’dovich’s theory was impossible because no physical matter can be mechanically spun fast enough to trigger the effect without ripping itself apart due to centrifugal forces.
Engineering “synthetic” rotation
To bypass the structural limits of mechanical spinning, the CUNY ASRC team engineered a stationary radio-frequency device that uses time-varying metamaterials to mimic ultrafast rotation.
Instead of rotating physical matter, the researchers built a ring-shaped network of electronic resonators. They used a computer to rapidly modulate the electromagnetic properties of these resonators in a precisely timed, cascading sequence. This created a travelling wave pattern that raced around the ring.
Even though the physical circuit board remained completely still, the rapidly shifting electronic pattern made incoming electromagnetic waves interact with the system as if it were a physical object spinning at “superluminal” (faster-than-light) speeds.
Broadband selective wave amplification
When researchers sent radio waves into the device, they observed the Penrose-Zel’dovich process in action. Waves injected with the correct, matching rotational attributes extracted raw energy directly from the synthetic time-engineered rotation. This resulted in broadband selective amplification, meaning the device could specifically target and boost designated wave signals.
Using synthetic motion to simulate extreme, superluminal rotational regimes gives researchers a safe, highly controlled laboratory environment to study quantum and astrophysical phenomena that are otherwise unreachable.
Future technological applications
The ability to amplify waves by passing them through stationary, time-modulated metamaterials has major implications for practical engineering. Looking forward, the research team aims to scale these concepts from radio frequencies up to photonic and quantum scales.
In the long term, this black-hole-inspired breakthrough could yield entirely new methods for manipulating light, boosting wireless communication signals, processing information in quantum optics, and designing next-generation photonic chips.
