"The world's smallest laser, contained in a silica sphere just 44 nanometres across, has been unveiled. At about 10 times smaller than the wavelength of light, however, this is no ordinary laser, it is the first ever 'spaser'." So reports Nature magazine on a new invention. SPASER! Great nickname for a 7th-grader who looks cool on a skateboard even in braces. The colors are pretty. But why would they want to make a smaller laser? How's anyone supposed to destroy an approaching asteroid with that?
Monday, August 17, 2009
4
One small step for man, one large step toward eyeball lasers for mankind.
"I can think of applications in tagging large biochemical assays and in security marking, where the spaser's narrow spectral output gives better tagging capacity than existing semiconductor quantum dot emitters."
FINALLY!
I was just saying the other day how I wished my semiconductor quantum dot emitters could tag more things.
Do these images look like cell division (mitosis/meiosis) to anyone else?