Scientists have developed a new type of laser that can generate a large amount of energy in a short time, and has potential application value in ophthalmology and cardiac surgery or fine materials engineering. Professor Martin Stucker, Director of the Institute of Photonics and Optical Sciences at the University of Sydney, said: The characteristic of this laser is that when the pulse duration is reduced to below one trillionth of a second, the energy can "The peak is reached, which makes it an ideal candidate for processing short and powerful pulsed materials.
One application may be corneal surgery, which relies on gently removing material from the eye, which requires strong and short light pulses that do not heat and damage the surface. The results of their research are published in the journal Natural Photonics. Scientists achieved this remarkable result by returning to a simple laser technology commonly found in telecommunications, metrology and spectroscopy. These lasers use an effect called "soliton" wave, which is a light wave that maintains shape over a long distance. The soliton was first discovered in the early 19th century, but it was not found in the light, but in the waves of the British industrial canal.
Dr. Antoine Runge, the lead author from the School of Physics, said: The fact that soliton waves in light maintain their shape means that they are excellent in a wide range of applications including telecommunications and spectral analysis. However, although the lasers that produce these solitons are easy to manufacture, they will not bring much impact. To generate high-energy light pulses used in manufacturing requires completely different physical systems. Dr. Andrea Blanco-Redondo, co-author of the study and head of silicon photonics at Nokia Bell Laboratories in the United States, said: soliton lasers are the simplest, most cost-effective, and most powerful way to achieve these short pulses. However, so far, traditional soliton lasers have not been able to provide enough energy, and new research may make soliton lasers play a role in biomedical applications.
This research builds on the research previously established by the team of the Institute of Photonics and Optical Sciences at the University of Sydney, which published the discovery of pure fourth-order solitons in 2016.
New laws in laser physics
In ordinary soliton lasers, the energy of light is inversely proportional to its pulse width. It is proved by the equation E=1/τ that if the light pulse time is halved, you will get twice the energy. With a four-time soliton, the energy of the light is inversely proportional to the third power of the pulse duration, ie E=1/τ3. This means that if the pulse time is halved, the energy it delivers during this time will be multiplied by 8 times. In the research, the most important thing is a new law in laser physics. The research proves that E=1/τ3, which will change the application of laser in the future.
Proof of establishing this new law will enable the research team to manufacture more powerful soliton lasers. In this study, pulses as short as one trillionth of a second were generated, but the research project can obtain shorter pulses. The next goal of the study is to generate pulses with a duration of femtoseconds, which will mean ultra-short laser pulses with peak powers of hundreds of kilowatts. This type of laser can open up a new way for us to apply laser when high peak energy is required but the substrate is not damaged!