This frozen fiber makes light and sound interact 1,000x more strongly
Freezing the liquid core of an optical fiber produced an extreme environment where light and sound interact more than 1,000 times more strongly than in ordinary fibers. Researchers used the effect to create optoacoustic memory, potentially paving the way for lower-energy photonic computers and advanced quantum technologies.
A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute of the Science of Light, Leibniz University Hannover, and Leibniz Institute for Photonic Technologies have discovered a way to make light and sound interact more than 1,000 times stronger in optical fibers. These fibers typically carry light by heating their structure until it becomes thin enough to be drawn into fibers.
However, researchers have now cooled the liquid core of these fibers to -196°C, transforming it into a solid. Surprisingly, the frozen core retained its ability to guide both light and sound. The interaction between light and sound inside the frozen fiber is unusually strong, a phenomenon called Brillouin-Mandelstam scattering. This discovery could lead to advancements in photonic neuromorphic computing, a component that temporarily retains information in slow sound waves before converting it back into light.
This technology could significantly reduce the energy requirements of future photonic computing systems. The work also opens up new possibilities for quantum information processing, microwave photonics, and high-precision sensing.
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