Scientists have figured out how to keep the light intensity in the fiber

The head of the fiber optics group at the EPFL engineering school, Luc Thévenaz, admitted that the idea was “in the air” in his

the head is about 15 years old, but he didn't have timeor the resources to do something about it. Now his lab has developed technology to amplify light inside novel hollow-core optical fibers.

Modern optical fibers usually havedurable glass core without air inside. Light can propagate along fibers, but after 15 km it loses half of its intensity. It continues to weaken until it is difficult to detect and from a distance of 300 km. Therefore, in order for the light to continue to move, it must be regularly amplified.

Thevenaz's approach is based on new opticalhollow core fibers filled with air or gas. Air means less signal attenuation, so light can travel a greater distance. This is a real advantage. But in a substance as “thin” as air, it is more difficult to amplify light. This is the crux of the problem: light travels faster when there is less resistance, but at the same time it is more difficult to act on it. However, the discovery of scientists solved this problem.

So what did the researchers do?They simply added pressure to the air in the fiber to create controlled resistance. It works similarly to optical tweezers - air molecules are compressed and form clusters with a regular distance between them. This creates a sound wave that increases in amplitude and effectively diffracts the light from the powerful source towards the weakened beam so that it is amplified up to 100,000 times. Thus, the scientists' technique makes light much more powerful.

The new technology can be applied to any type of light, from infrared to ultraviolet, as well as any gas, the scientists conclude.

In the future, this technology may serve otherspurposes other than amplification of light. For example, optical fibers with a hollow core or compressed gas can be used to make ultra-precise thermometers. The technology could also be used to create temporary optical memory by stopping light in the fiber for a microsecond—ten times longer than is currently possible.

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