TEMPO.CO, Jena - Researchers in Germany and London have made the world's fastest laser. The discovery could even be used to make the Internet quicker.
The laser turns on and off at a very high speed. It’ss uncertain what the real-world impact may be, but researchers behind the laser say that it could be a big leap for communication technology and data connection speeds.
When Mashable contacted the researchers for more details about how the laser would work, one scientist confirmed it could impact the web.
"If one can now switch the laser on and off very fast, then more information is transported for a given time frame," Carsten Ronning, a scientist from Germany's Friedrich Schiller University Jena, told Mashable on Wednesday, October 1. The university also partnered on the project with researchers at Imperial College London.
What sets this laser apart from previous iterations is that the zinc oxide nanowire material used to develop the lasers is placed on silver instead of glass, which is traditionally used, according to an Imperial College London news release.
Scientists then use a special technique to squeeze light into a much smaller place than usual. By switching out a glass surface and pushing a bunch of light into a tiny space, researchers were able to reduce the diameter of the laser down to about a thousandth the size of a human hair. This causes a greater interaction between the light and nanowire.
The ultra-thin laser produces as many as 1 trillion pulses per second, making it much faster than the average laser. The laser operates stably at room temperature. Ronning said that this is probably the maximum possible speed at which such a laser can be operated.
ERWIN Z. | MASHABLE
