Pew Pew! Scientists Build Lasers Out of Sound, Call Them Phasers

physnews.com ^

[BenLurkin]

Set your phasers on "miniature medical sensor." We're so used to lasers that it's easy to forget that the word is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation." As its name explains, lasing is all about powerful light beams made of photons with tightly controlled energies. It's easy to forget too that the laser's invention changed the modern world, particularly in the case of tiny semiconductor laser diodes like those in your DVD drives. Now Japanese scientists have invented the equivalent semiconductor device but for sounds. These are devices for making very controlled vibrations, making vibrations with tightly controlled energies--which physicists call phonons. This of course means that a laser-like device for sound is called a phaser. And Mr. Spock has nothing to do with it.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BenLurkin. Uh-oh, I guess we need to worry about Obama’s Drones being armed with these when he launches his Drone Wars and starts showing up in a Sith cowl.

“This Rectory of yours — it wouldn’t happen to have a Pew in it?” — Oswald Lee Harvey

[NativeSon]

Maybe but having handheld plasma cannons instead of Trek like phasers was an interesting concept. A lot of unanswered questions from the show and that might have added to the appeal.