Housed in a silica sphere 44 nanometres across and 10 times smaller than the wavelength of light, the world’s smallest laser has been unveiled by its investors, according to a report in Nature News.
The new laser is called a SPASER, an acronym for "surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.”
Unlike lasers which amplify light using a mirrored cavity, the SPASER amplifies tiny oscillations of electrons on the surface of metals – called surface plasmons – to produce visible light waves.
“This work has utmost significance,” said Mark Stockman of Georgia State University in Atlanta, who with David Bergman of Tel Aviv University in Israel proposed the spaser concept in 2003.
Because the new device is the first of its kind to emit visible light, it represents a critical component for possible future technologies based on "nanophotonic" circuitry, said electrical and computer engineering Professor Vladimir Shalaev from Purdue University.
Potential radical advances based on nanophotonics include powerful "hyperlenses" which could produce 10 times more powerful sensors and microscopes that could see objects as small as DNA; computers and electronics that use light instead of electronic signals to process information thousands of times faster than the current microelectronic chips; more efficient solar collectors; and nanolithography – etching patterns smaller than the width of a human hair.