Alchemy With Light Shocks Physicists

from the fun-with-lights dept

Roland Piquepaille writes "In this article, the New Scientist tells us about an amazing discovery about the control of light. Researchers from the MIT "document the ultimate control over light: a way to shift the frequency of light beams to any desired colour, with near 100 per cent efficiency." This control is achieved by passing shock waves through a device called a photonic crystal. As one researcher said, "We ought to be able to do things that have never been possible before." Besides better light bulbs, this breakthrough will help to improve optical telecommunications networks and provide medical imaging with easy-to-produce terahertz rays. Check my blog for a summary or an older post if you're interested by the photonic revolution."

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