Innovative concept changes the direction of laser light with the help of sound waves
Using a novel method, beams of laser light can be deflected using air alone. An invisible grating made only of air is not only immune to damage from the laser light, but it also preserves the original quality of the beam, reports the interdisciplinary research team in the journal Nature Photonics. The researchers have applied for a patent for their method.
In this animation, a laser light beam passes between a loudspeaker-reflector array that creates a grating of air. The laser beam interacts with this grating and is deflected without contact. Animation: Science Communication Lab for DESY
The innovative technique uses sound waves in order to modulate the air in the region where the laser beam is passing. “We’ve generated an optical grating with the help of acoustic density waves,” explains first author Yannick Schrödel, a Ph.D. student at DESY and Helmholtz Institute Jena. With the help of special loudspeakers, the researchers shape a pattern of dense and less dense areas in the air, forming a striped grating. In a way that is similar to how differential air densities bend the light in the Earth’s atmosphere, the density pattern takes on the role of an optical grating that changes the directi
