Oct 11, 2010 14:12 GMT  ·  By

We are talking about laser, of course, as an association of British and European laser scientists have proven theoretically that developing new energy sources will become less expensive, manufacturing processes will become more advanced and all this thanks to a new laser technology.

In theory, a new, groundbreaking method called Raman amplification, can take long laser pulses and compress them up to 1000 times shorter and 300 times more intense.

The feasibility of this method was proven theoretically by a team of researchers from the Instituto Superior Tecnico in Lisbon, Imperial College London and the Universities of St Andrews, Lancaster and Strathclyde as well as STFC's Central Laser Facility staff.

In other words, today's very complex and expensive laser set-ups will be replaced by smaller and cheaper systems, so that many technologies could become more accessible and easier to mass-produce.

The laser has been invented 50 years ago and after half a century it is time to innovate, by developing more powerful lasers that can keep up with the rest of the technology.

And as Professor John Collier, Director of the STFC's Central Laser Facility said, “this year's celebration of 50 years of the laser is a poignant reminder that we need to start thinking about the next generation of laser technology.

“We have come to rely on lasers so much in our daily lives, for everything from high speed internet connections to medical techniques, that we can't afford to pause even for a moment in developing laser techniques further, because these new techniques take years to develop and test.”

Dr Raoul Trines from STFC's Central Laser Facility said that “in the past, studies have been carried out to test the theory, but only using simplified models which do not include all of the relevant phenomena.

“Our new model has shown that, in most cases, the amplified laser beam breaks up into 'spikes', making it difficult to focus the beam to a small spot.

“But for a few special cases, the amplified laser pulse is of excellent quality, enabling exceptionally tight focusing of the beam.”

This technique has been tested over a two-year period, thanks to some of the world's most powerful supercomputers, and no aspect of the theory has been ignored.

Up next is putting the theory in practice, using a real high power laser and perfect the method through several tests.

The study, carried out by scientists at the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Central Laser Facility was published in this week’s edition of Nature Physics.