The researchers focused their Diocles Laser to a brightness a billion times that of the surface of the Sun, and found that at that extreme level, the fundamental physics of how light enables vision begin to change.

Normally, when light from the Sun, a lightbulb or any other source strikes the surface of an object, the electrons in the object cause the photons in the light to scatter. Our eyes pick that up to allow us to see the object, but brighter light won't change the object's appearance beyond making it look brighter. When the Diocles Laser is cranked up, however, things start to get a little weird.

The team blasted the laser at electrons suspended in helium, and then measured how single electrons scattered the photons of light that hit them. Electrons are known to scatter just one photon at a time under normal circumstances, but in this experiment almost 1,000 were scattered simultaneously.