Lord of the microrings: Team reports breakthrough in microring laser cavities
Thursday, October 30, 2014 - 14:31
in Physics & Chemistry
A significant breakthrough in laser technology has been reported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley. Scientists led by Xiang Zhang, a physicist with joint appointments at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, have developed a unique microring laser cavity that can produce single-mode lasing even from a conventional multi-mode laser cavity. This ability to provide single-mode lasing on demand holds ramifications for a wide range of applications including optical metrology and interferometry, optical data storage, high-resolution spectroscopy and optical communications.