A 'salty' source of coherent light

Roland Piquepaille writes "Coherent light is produced by a beam of photons that all have the same frequency and are all at the same phase. And today lasers are the only form of technology that we know able to create such light. But by sending shock waves inside a humble crystalline material -- kitchen salt -- researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have found a new way to produce coherent light for the first time in 50 years -- at least in the terahertz frequency range. This could lead to applications in optical communications, quantum computing or shock diagnostics. Read more for additional details and references about this discovery."

Comments

Re:Aha!

[j_cavera]

You may think that funny, but... If you take a humble kosher dill and stick a nail into either end, then run normal 110v AC through said pickle, it will glow with a soft yellow light as the salt in the brine becomes excited. Go ahead an try this at home. For some reason, kosher dills do this best. So given this as prior art, I'd take the laser findings with a grain of ... yeah, whatever. - Jim