If you can't get photons from the future, just get a hold of some thiotimoline, a compound invented by SF master Isaac Asimov that dissolves slightly before it is added to water. After first describing it in a spoof chemistry paper, he returned to it several times, exploring its different applications and the new scientific field it created, "chronochemistry".

The best IMHO is "Thiotimoline and the Space Age" from 1960. You can read it on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/MerrilEdTheYearsBestSF05/Merril_...