My assessment in photon's time delay:

When a photon is absorbed by electrons in a material (such as a media surface), it can indeed lead to energy loss in the form of electronic excitation or heating. This energy loss occurs because the photon's energy is transferred to the electrons, causing them to move to higher energy states or become excited.

When these excited electrons release photons, the emitted photons may have different energies and directions compared to the incident photon. This change in direction and energy can result in a definite absorption loss, although it might be infinitesimal loss.

In applications like optics and photonics, minimizing energy losses is essential to maintain high reflectivity or transmission of light. Minimizing energy loss means, there is minimum possible energy loss. so there is definite loss. such loss definitely imply infinitisimal time delay.

#photon #timedelay