While the lasers already possible to create channels of communication between two points more or less remote. But even concentrated light produced tends to lose intensity with distance and diffract in the air. Unlike the optical fiber which, by the phenomenon of reflection light signal on the walls of plastic support, guide the laser from one end to the other without loss of connection.
An infinite number of milliseconds
It is this ability that wishes to reproduce guide researchers but by exploiting the air as physical support. Howard Milchberg has developed a "waveguide air" by playing on the difference in density of the gas. It builds an air of low density surrounding an air-core higher density "wall." The wall then acts as reflective walls of the optical fiber to the center of guiding the light signal to its target.
The wall is generated from a laser powerful enough to create a collapse of air particles into a narrow beam, called the filament, the time of a spark. The "channel" produced by the spark certainly a few milliseconds but long enough to receive the laser pulse. "Milliseconds are endless," says Howard Milchberg in a statement.
1.5 times the strength of a signal without air guide
This waveguide allows air to 1.5 times to enhance the strength of the signal relative to a program that does not. What seems but can make a difference over long distances. For now, the researchers were able to generate an effective signal of 1 meter and are now working on more than 50 meters distance.
If research has shown conclusive, the applications would be in electronic communications, but also to analyze the composition of the atmosphere in inaccessible locations in the realization of high-resolution topographic terrain but also a new generation of laser weapons. NASA, which is experimenting with laser communications between the ISS and Earth, might be interested in the project loan.