News Tech

Beam Team: Unusual laser emits a band of light

By Peter Weiss

- More than 2 years ago

Typically, lasers emit light of one pure color, or wavelength. A new little laser breaks that mold by generating a beam containing all the wavelengths in a swath of the electromagnetic spectrum.

SEMICONDUCTOR PHYLLO. A new laser’s 650 microscopic layers (left) include 36 light-emitting regions. Diagrams of sample regions (right) show that indium gallium arsenide (orange) and aluminum indium arsenide (blue) are deposited at different widths to generate wavelengths from 6 micrometers (top) to 8 micrometers (bottom).