Researchers create world's first water-wave laser in Israel

Researchers in Israel have developed world's first 'water-wave laser' that emits a beam when there is an interaction between light and water waves. Laser radiation is produced when electrons in atoms become excited by energy absorbed from an outside source.

The laser can later be used in tiny sensors that combine sound and water waves. For now, this water-wave laser offers researchers a chance to study the interaction of light and fluid at a scale even smaller than width of a human hair.

This study serves as a bridge between two areas of research that were earlier considered unrelated to one another. Scientists at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology showed for the first time that water wave oscillations within a liquid device also generate laser radiation.

To compensate the frequency difference between light and water waves scientists have created a device in which an optical fibre delivers light into a tiny droplet of octane and water.

In this process, light waves and water waves pass through each other many times inside the droplet, that generates energy leaving the droplet as emission of water-wave laser.

This interaction between fibre optic and miniscule vibrations on the droplet's surface are like an echo where the interaction of sound waves and surface they pass through can make a single scream audible several times.

Scientists say the minute pressure applied by light can therefore cause droplet deformation that is a million times greater than in a typical optomechanical device, which may offer greater control of the laser’s emissions and capabilities. The study was published in the journal Nature photonics.