Friday, June 02, 2006

SASER - the sound analog of LASER

What do you get when you cross acoustics and lasers? The answer is a SASER (Sound Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). This has been done before but there is a new implementation out. Work was by University of Nottingham in the UK and the Lashkarev Institute of Semiconductor Physics in the Ukraine and is in the 2 June 2006 edition of Physical Review Letter.

(Hat tip: Physics News Update)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very interesting, is there anything online with a more detailed description of the technology? What would the applications be?

Keith said...

Physics News has updated its website with a link to more information (including a link at the bottom to the technical paper). I will edit my original posting to include the new link.

As far as applications go, it mentions optoelectronic devices.

Anonymous said...

The Economist magazine's quarterly technology survey (June 8 issue or thereabouts) includes an article on SASERs. One of the applications they propose is printed-circuit board inspection.

Keith said...

Thanks for the heads-up, Steve. I was able to locate a paper copy and it is a good article.