NIST scientists create 'any wavelength' lasers
by rbanffy on 4/18/2026, 8:54:17 PM
Comments
by: adzm
Everyone talking about magenta and brown, but you can see an illusory color right now even without lasers! <a href="https://dynomight.net/colors/" rel="nofollow">https://dynomight.net/colors/</a> behold, some kind of hyper-turquoise
4/18/2026, 10:59:10 PM
by: spaqin
That's most certainly good news (depending on the final cost) for ion trapping quantum computing - the wavelength of the laser they require to trap an ion depends on the molecule chosen, and most setups are expensive, finicky and difficult to calibrate, or sometimes messy if it's a dye laser.
4/18/2026, 11:58:38 PM
by: evo
I wonder if this is a nuclear proliferation risk--could it be used for AVLIS/SILEX?
4/19/2026, 12:02:07 AM
by: mapt
Is there a single person here interested in photonic computing that wants to explain to the class if there's any "there" there?
4/18/2026, 10:05:56 PM
by: himata4113
since the light range is so high, technically speaking as the technology improves does that mean we could end up sending petabytes a second over a single fiber optic core?
4/18/2026, 11:43:13 PM
by: jagged-chisel
The "shrinking" circle: I did as asked and clicked the image to see the animation. I saw no shrinking. My eyes did fatigue and I saw the border between the red and green become a blurred gradient.<p>What should I have experienced?
4/18/2026, 11:32:16 PM
by: deepsun
Would I finally be able to see bright brown?
4/18/2026, 11:40:32 PM
by: jcims
Can each device vary the color or is it fixed based on how it’s built? Seems the latter?
4/18/2026, 11:01:03 PM
by: aftbit
Cool, can I get a "proper" yellow diode laser from this? What's the efficiency look like?
4/18/2026, 10:11:21 PM
by: cheschire
Yes but can it do any color a <i>mantis shrimp</i> would like?<p><a href="https://theoatmeal.com/comics/mantis_shrimp" rel="nofollow">https://theoatmeal.com/comics/mantis_shrimp</a>
4/18/2026, 10:27:05 PM
by: __MatrixMan__
I'll take one in gamma please.
4/18/2026, 11:03:06 PM
by: guzfip
Very cool stuff. I regret wasting my life in software when I see other fields still doing interesting work.
4/18/2026, 11:13:58 PM
by: analog8374
can they do microwave?<p>if you do the exact right color you can make certain things melt very precisely.
4/18/2026, 10:22:06 PM
by: jiveturkey
But can it produce magenta?
4/18/2026, 10:14:43 PM
by: staplung
What if I like magenta? Or brown?
4/18/2026, 10:14:50 PM