Monday, July 16, 2012

How To Steer Sound Using Light - Technology Review

How To Steer Sound Using Light - Technology Review: Zap an optical fibre with a couple of laser beams and the resulting interference pattern causes an interesting effect--it squeezes the material, an effect known as electrostriction...
Not to be outdone, phonons also influence light because they change the refractive index of the material. This bends light and alters its frequency, an effect known as Brillouin scattering...
They say that the light ends up guiding the phonons that it creates. In other words, it's possible to create and then steer sound using light. "The phonon wavepacket generated via [electrostriction] is naturally guided by the light that gave it birth," say Beugnot and Laude.

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