Dr Cirac and Dr Romero-Isart therefore propose putting the virus inside a microscopic cavity and cooling it down to its state of lowest energy (ground state, in physics parlance) using a piece of apparatus known as a laser trap.
"By that I mean try to imagine creating a cavityinside your mouth without any air bubbles and by letting in no air through your lips or throat -- it's basically impossible at sea level because the air pressure outside your mouth pushes the air pocket closed, " he said.
They did this by putting pieces of silicon or one of a number of other solid materials inside a shoe-box-sized cavity and zapping the material with microwaves from a metal tip.
