Smarter Way to Make UV Beams
ANN ARBOR, Mich., Nov. 30, 2011 — A better way to build compact ultraviolet (UV) light sources with low power consumption has been discovered using an optimized optical resonator, which could lead to improved information storage, microscopy and chemical analysis.
Researchers at the University of Michigan used a whispering gallery resonator to take an infrared signal from relatively cheap telecommunication-compatible lasers and, using a low-power, nonlinear process, boosted it to a higher-energy UV beam.
In the setup...