Light sheds on new fibre's potential to change technology

December 10, 2007

Photonic crystal fibre’s ability to create broad spectra of light, which will be the basis for important developments in technology, has been explained for the first time in an article in the leading science journal Nature Photonics.

The fibre can change a pulse of light with a narrow range of wavelengths into a spectrum hundreds of times broader and ranging from visible light to the infra-red. This is called a supercontinuum.

This supercontinuum is one of the most exciting areas of applied physics today and the ability to create it easily will have a significant effect on technology.

This includes telecommunications, where optical systems hundreds of times more efficient than existing types will be created because signals can be transmitted and processed at many wavelengths simultaneously.

Supercontinua generated in photonic crystal fibres also help to create optical clocks which are so accurate that they lose or gain only a second every million years. Two physicists based in the US and Germany shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2005 for work in this area.

Despite these applications, the mechanism behind supercontinuum generation has remained unclear, which has stopped physicists from being even more precise in using it.

But researchers at the University of Bath have now discovered the reason for much of the broadening of the spectrum.

Dr Dmitry Skryabin and Dr Andrey Gorbach, of the Centre for Photonics and Photonic Materials in the Department of Physics, found that the generation of light across the entire visible spectrum was caused by an interaction between conventional pulse of lights and what are called solitons, special light waves that maintain their shape as they travel down the fibre.

The researchers found that the pulses of light sent down the fibre get struck behind the solitons as both pass down the fibre, because the solitons slow down as they move. This barrier caused by the solitons forces the light pulses to shorten their wavelength and so become bluer, just as the solitons’ wavelength lengthens, becoming redder. This dual effect creates the broadened spectrum.

“One of the most startling effects of the photonic crystal fibre is its ability to create a strong bright spectrum of visible and infra red light from a very brief pulse of light,” said Dr Skryabin.

“We have never fully understood exactly why this happens until our research showed how the pulse of light is slowed down and blocked by other activity in the fibre, forcing it to shorten its wavelength.

“Until now the creation and manipulation of the supercontinua in photonic crystal fibres have been done in an ad-hoc way without knowing exactly why different effects are observed. But now we should be able to be much more precise when using it.”

Dr Skryabin believes that the interaction between light pulses and solitons has similarities with the way gravity acts on objects.

Source: University of Bath

4.6 /5 (50 votes)  

Rank 4.6 /5 (50 votes)
Tags

Related Stories
Relevant PhysicsForums posts
  • Physical laws .... are they material?!!
    created52 minutes ago
  • increasing time of daylight
    created1 hour ago
  • Light & Sight
    created1 hour ago
  • Wind Turbine Power
    created4 hours ago
  • Steam Table issues
    created6 hours ago
  • electrostatic induction in a conductor should be immpossible
    created10 hours ago
  • More from Physics Forums - General Physics

More news stories

Putting the squeeze on planets outside our solar system

(PhysOrg.com) -- Using high-powered lasers, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and collaborators discovered that molten magnesium silicate undergoes a phase change in the liquid state, abruptly ...

Physics / Condensed Matter

created 29 minutes ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Hovering not hard if you're top-heavy, researchers find

Top-heavy structures are more likely to maintain their balance while hovering in the air than are those that bear a lower center of gravity, researchers at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences ...

Physics / General Physics

created 1 hour ago | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

SLAC, Stanford team focuses on high-energy electrons to treat cancer

Accelerator physicists at SLAC and cancer specialists from Stanford are working on a new technology that could dramatically reduce the time needed for cancer radiation treatments. The team ran an initial experiment ...

Physics / General Physics

created 4 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Measurements from high-energy collisions lead to better understanding of why meson particles disappear

For several years, physicists at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), USA, have studied an unusual state of matter called the quark–gluon plasma, which they ...

Physics / General Physics

created 5 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Quantum physicist explains $100K offer for proof scaled-up quantum computing is impossible

(PhysOrg.com) -- MIT researcher Scott Aaronson has certainly riled the physics community with his offer this past Friday, of $100,000 to anyone who can prove that scaled-up quantum computing is impossible. ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Feb 08, 2012 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (11) | comments 32 | with audio podcast weblog


Employers feel no love for unscrupulous practice of 'service sweethearting'

A new study led by two Florida State University marketing professors finds that some frontline service employees who are rewarded for hikes in customer loyalty and satisfaction also may engage in "service ...

US issues guidelines to avoid heparin contamination

Four years after US drug-maker Baxter International's blood thinner heparin was contaminated in China, causing dozens of deaths, US regulators on Friday issued draft guidelines for safe production.

Expat French get Internet vote for first time

French citizens will for the first time this year be able to vote in a parliamentary election over the Internet, an experiment that could be extended to other elections if successful.

"Twisted Metal" gamers get shot at real gunplay

Fans of "Twisted Metal" will get to welcome a long-awaited sequel of the car-battle videogame with a real-world bang by blasting an ice cream truck to bits with a machine gun.

The power of estrogen -- male snakes attract other males

A new study has shown that boosting the estrogen levels of male garter snakes causes them to secrete the same pheromones that females use to attract suitors, and turned the males into just about the sexiest ...

New error-correcting codes guarantee the fastest possible rate of data transmission

Error-correcting codes are one of the triumphs of the digital age. They’re a way of encoding information so that it can be transmitted across a communication channel — such as an optical fiber o ...