Nature sub journal: breakthroughs in laser technology may make technology faster

Laser has become an important part of our daily life. From mobile phones and tablets to autonomous cars and data communications, even the information you are reading may be transmitted to you through lasers.

The application of laser technology is becoming more and more extensive. Dr. Martin Pl ö schner, a researcher from the Institute of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ITEE) of the University of Queensland, said, "In the past 15 years, I have been using lasers, but I am often surprised to find that they are in the most unexpected places."

Laser tools developed by UQ team. Source: Dr Martin Pl ö schner

"In many of their applications, lasers work in the part of the spectrum that we cannot see with the naked eye. The brain often does not know what the eye cannot see. If lasers work more in the visible part of the spectrum, the world around us will be a spectacular laser show."

One hidden application of lasers is optical data communication, in which lasers transmit information through optical fibers. However, the growing demand for faster and more frequent access to data is pushing global optical networks to their limits, known as "capacity compression"

The working principle of Stokes polarimetry and its spatial simulation.

Dr. Joel Carpenter of UQ ITEE said that laser pulses travel at different speeds along glass or plastic fibers and may overlap, slowing down the process.

Dr. Carpenter said, "Imagine yelling at a friend through a long concrete pipe. Your message will be distorted according to the size of the pipe echo, and you must wait for the echo of one message to disappear before sending the next message. This is a similar problem in the cluster of large computer servers. The number of echoes depends on the shape and color of the laser emitted into the optical fiber."

Measuring the characteristics of lasers is essential for improvement, but there is no method to capture this complexity completely.

Spatial state tomography with spectral, temporal and polarization resolution.

Dr. Pl ö schner, Dr. Carpenter and their team with expertise in laser beam manipulation, shaping and characterization are keen to solve this problem. In cooperation with the leading laser manufacturer II-VI GmbH, they spent three years researching how to make the laser faster and improve its performance.

Improved laser technology will benefit a range of industries, from telecommunications to safety and automotive manufacturing. Automobiles use lasers to create 3D images of scenes to help them navigate or reverse in places with heavy traffic. "Every time you use facial recognition to unlock a smartphone, hundreds of micro lasers will scan it. There is no doubt that there is a large demand for lasers with higher performance. This breakthrough will open a treasure house of information - a treasure house of light beams," said Dr. Pl ö schner.

This research has been published in Nature Communications.

Temporal and spatial spectral analysis of VCSEL (H-polarization).

Source:Spatial tomography of light resolved in time, spectrum, and polarisation, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31814-2