Tubular laser beams can create what amount to fiber-optic cables made of thin air, researchers report in a study to appear in Physical Review X.
Laser-heated air can efficiently transmit light signals without the need to lay fiber-optic cables. These air-based “waveguides” can also provide pathways for ultrahigh-energy lasers that don’t propagate well through air on their own, building on earlier efforts that have been touted as a route to laser beam weapons (SN: 3/5/14).
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The latest experiments, says physicist Howard Milchberg of the University of Maryland
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