[sourcery]

FYI

[sourcery]

Oops. The first sentence got cut, somehow. It starts: "Claims of "unexpected and stunning new physical phenomena" are..."

[Adams]

Scotty,

Arm all PHASER banks and prepare to fire...

[Lurking Libertarian]

Physics ping.

[ClearCase_guy]

From computer simulations, the team found that shock waves passing through a crystal alter its properties as they compress it.

It's good that they are actually trying to produce this effect in the lab. Because sometimes those computer simulations are not as accurate as the real thing ...

[Some hope remaining.]

interesting.

[js1138]

Hope this comes to market faster than superconductivity. this is one of those things I've dreamed about but never thought I'd see. Just goes to show that sometimes reality outpaces science fiction.

[G Larry]

Cisco folks should find out how to get to the front of the line to patent applications for this new technology.
Could solve some "last mile" problems

[Starrgaizr]

"shooting bullets at photonic crystals... would destroy the crystal"

Science writing bump

[martin_fierro]

Brittany Spears digs photonic crystals.

[Gary Boldwater]

Light has been shifted in frequency at low power by heterodyning techniques in MIM diode structures. There's abundant literature on this.

The most important thing about this article is that it shows light can be frequency shifted by shock waves in a medium. Now apply this knowledge to the big picture - specifically cosmology and the cosmological red shift. The cosmological redshift is based on the assumption that primordal light was stretched (lowered in frequency) by the initial expansion of the universe (and remaining constant in velocity for all time, despite evidence to the contrary). Of course there's exceptions, but cosmologists are fully free to ignore contradictions in their theories. Now supposed instead of the big bang, the light simply passed through shocks waves in cold gases, giving local red and blue shifts. I know this goes against astrological, I mean cosmological science because it is reproducible in the laboratory and doesn't use dark matter or hidden energy or hidden dimensions or virtual particles or unmeasurable quantities but it is worth looking at by scientists.

[LibWhacker]

Wow, amazing. Wonder what implications this has for laser R&D?

[Physicist]

From computer simulations, the team found that shock waves passing through a crystal alter its properties as they compress it.

Vaporware alert. Lots of stuff looks good in simulation, only to fail in the real world.

The team is now collaborating with researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to demonstrate the effect.

This should read: "to discover whether there really is any such effect."

Initially they will generate shock waves by shooting bullets at photonic crystals. This would destroy the crystal, but not before the light has had time to shift. Eventually, sound waves should do the job just as well, they say. "It¹s really practical, and potentially even easier to do than with actual shock waves," says Reed.

I wonder why they don't try the sound method first. To bond a piezo to a photonic crystal, shine a laser on it, hook it up to a frequency generator and twiddle the knob sounds like the work of an afternoon.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[Bigg Red]

Wow!

[Redcloak]

Where do I get one? I could use one of these puppies! I have an application that requires a broad 1.5µ source, but most of the sources available are made with Erbium. Erbium has an annoying double-hump pattern to its spectrum. With a tool like this, I could take a source at another wavelength, such as the 1.3µ sources I use now, and simply shift it out to 1.5µ. Their crystal might aslo work to broaden the spectrum which would help me too.

[VOA]

The researchers document the ultimate control over light: a way to shift the frequency
of light beams to any desired colour, with near 100 per cent efficiency.

But will it really have any signifigance?
Like, will this mean laser light shows will be a lot cooler?

(sorry folks, I think I just had a drug-free flash-back to some concerts I went
to years ago!)

[Chem_Engineer]

It's hard to believe that this works, because it seems to be creating energy from nothing. The energy of a light wave is planck's constant times its frequency, so you can't just change the frequency without adding energy. To make terahertz waves you'd have to put a lot of energy into the wave. In other words, it would have to have a very large shock or sound wave.

[Ken H]

Bookmarking for later read.

[gcruse]

If radio waves were visible, the signal coming off an AM antenna would look like a sparkler, as the amplitude is the variant. On an FM station, the tower would put out a kaleidescopic rainbow of colors, because frequency is being modulated. If the station is broadcasting NPR, the signal would look hallucinogenic, because your mind is being manipulated.