A novel fiber conducts ultrashort light pulses with the highest precision.
Researchers at the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy (MBI) have developed a novel optical fiber that can transmit ultrashort light pulses with unprecedented precision. The researchers transmitted light pulses lasting 13 fs (1 femtosecond = 1 fs = 1 billionth of a millionth of a second) over a length of one meter, with the duration of the pulses only approximately doubling. "No other fiber technology can do that right now. Günter Steinmeyer. In the researchers' experiments, other similarly built fibers stretched the same impulse to almost 50 times their duration. For example, the new fibers could be used in medicine to flexibly transmit femtosecond pulses to the patient. The researchers report on their findings in the current online issue of Nature Photonics (doi: 10.1038 / nphoton.2008.203).
More information: Press release Forschungsverbund