Lasers are universal tools that nowadays find numerous applications from entertaining our cats to encryption coding communications. 
Nevertheless, conventional laser systems can be energy-intensive, herein, the majority of them are made employing toxic materials, for instance, arsenic and gallium. Thus, it is necessary to find new materials and technologies to make fiber lasers more sustainable.
A group of researchers from the U.S. has discovered a new phenomenon that leads to the creation of a fiber laser system with over 40% efficiency that is nearly ten times higher than other similar laser systems. To be more precise, new laser “is made from a glass ring on a silicon wafer with only a monolayer coating of siloxane molecules anchored to the surface”.
Compared to previous versions, this laser system offers improved power consumption, and it is made from more sustainable materials. It should be noted that the operating principle of the surface laser system is based on an extension of the Raman effect that allows understanding how the interaction of light with a material can lead to molecular vibrations resulting in laser beam light emission.
Moreover, this type of laser system has one unique characteristic: the emitted wavelength is determined by the material vibrational frequency, but not by its electronic transitions. That is to say, it is easy to adjust the emitted laser beam light by changing the incident light.
The laser systems based on Raman technology have numerous applications such as military communications, microscopy and imaging, medical area for ablation therapy, a minimally invasive procedure to destroy abnormal tissue such as tumors. The main purpose is to produce a fiber laser system where all of the incident laser beam light will be changed into emitted light.
The thing is that in a usual solid-state Raman laser system, the molecules interact with each other resulting in the performance reduction. That is why a new is required to be developed to overcome this challenge. The researchers confirm that if traditional laser systems are regarded as the old energy-inefficient light bulbs, new laser technology will make new laser systems as energy-efficient LED lightbulbs – a brighter result requiring lower energy input.
Finally, the efficiency of motion movement is increasing as well as the ability to act as a laser system by constraining the motion. Therefore, the molecules are set to the surface of an integrated photonic glass ring that limits an initial laser beam light source. Herewith, the laser beam light inside the ring excites the surface-constrained molecules providing the efficiency of nearly 10 times higher, even despite there is less material.
Optromix is a fast-growing fiber laser manufacturer and a vendor of optical fiber sensors and optical monitoring systems. The company offers fast turnkey solutions and creates sophisticated fiber laser systems for special purposes. Optromix uses only its technologies and develops a broad variety of fiber lasers. If you have any questions or would like to buy a laser system, please contact us at info@optromix.com
