Scientists build the world`s first anti-laser

18.02.2011 [22:34]
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Baku, February 18 (AZERTAC). Physicists have built the world`s first device that can cancel out a laser beam - a so-called anti-laser.

The device, created by a team from Yale University, is capable of absorbing an incoming laser beam entirely.

But this is not intended as a defence against high-power laser weapons, the researchers said.

Instead they think it could be used in next-generation supercomputers which will be built with components that use light rather than electrons.

Professor Douglas Stone and colleagues at Yale University had initially been developing a theory to explain which materials could be used as the basis of lasers.

Building something which can absorb light over a wide range of wavelengths is pretty simple, said Professor Stone, but only doing so for a particular wavelength makes the anti-laser potentially useful in optical computing.

The anti-laser`s big advantage is that it is built using silicon, which is already widely used in computing.

It would not, however, be much use as a laser shield, according to Professor Stone.

"The energy gets dissipated as heat. So if someone sets a laser on you with enough power to fry you, the anti-laser won`t stop you from frying," he said.

Scientists build the world`s first anti-laser

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