Shocking crystals produces light.(Emerging Technologies: Eureka)

R & D, February, 2006

For the past 50 years, lasers and free-electron lasers have been the only fundamental ways to produce coherent light.

That has all changed with the recent discovery of a new source of coherent optical radiation that is distinct from lasers and free-electron lasers, discovered by researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, Calif., and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge.

Developers: Researchers from LLNL and MIT.

What's new: Coherent light from a source other than a laser or free-electron laser.

How it works: A shock wave is sent through a dielectric crystalline material which then emits coherent light at frequencies that are determined by the shock speed and the lattice...

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