The new phonon laser could allow breakthroughs in the detection and processing of information

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The optical laser has reached a global technology market of $ 10 billion since its invention in 1960 and has led to the Nobel Prize awarded to Art Ashkin for the development of optical forceps and to Gerard Mourou and Donna Strickland for work with lasers to pulses. Today, a researcher from the Rochester Institute of Technology has teamed up with experts from the University of Rochester to create a different type of laser, a laser for sound, using the forceps technique. optics invented by Ashkin.

In the last issue of Photonic Nature, the researchers propose and demonstrate a phonon laser using a nanoparticle with optical levitation. A phonon is a quantum of energy associated with a sound wave. Optical tweezers test the limits of quantum effects in isolation and eliminate physical disturbances of the environment. The researchers studied the mechanical vibrations of the nanoparticle, which is levitated against gravity by the radiation force located at the center of an optical laser beam.

"Measuring the position of the nanoparticle by detecting the scattered light and integrating this information into the bundle of clamps allows us to create a situation similar to that of a laser," said Mishkat Bhattacharya, an associate professor of physics at the RIT and researcher in theoretical quantum optics. . "The mechanical vibrations become intense and synchronize perfectly, just like the electromagnetic waves emitted by an optical laser."

As the waves emitted by a laser pointer are synchronized, the beam can travel a long distance without spreading in all directions, unlike sunlight or a light bulb. In a standard optical laser, the properties of the luminous flux are controlled by the material from which the laser is made. Interestingly, in the phonon laser, the roles of light and matter are reversed – the movement of the material particle is now governed by optical feedback.

"We are very excited to see what the uses of this device will be, especially for the detection and processing of information, because the optical laser has many applications in constant evolution," said Bhattacharya. He also stated that the phonon laser promised to allow the investigation of fundamental quantum physics, including the engineering of the famous Schrödinger cat thought experiment, which can exist simultaneously in two locations.

Bhattacharya collaborated with the experimental group led by Nick Vamivakas at the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester. The theoretical team of Bhattacharya was made up of RIT postdoctoral researchers, Wenchao Ge and Pardeep Kumar, while Vamivakas directed the postgraduate students of the UR, Robert Pettit and Danika Luntz-Martin, the lt.r. former student Levi Neukirch and post-doctoral fellow Justin Schultz.