Converting Light Wavelengths within Fiber

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Scientists have known about the wavelength conversion ability of certain materials for many years. In fact, says Kumar, traditional fiber can also convert wavelengths of light. However, kilometers of common fiber are needed to produce the same effect, whereas the UCSD group needed only about 20 meters of photonic crystal fiber, he says. Kumar also notes that, although wavelength conversion has been done in photonic crystal before, it has not been accomplished "to this broad of a range" -- more than 1,000 nanometers, from 1,550 to 515 nanometers. Photonic crystal fiber has been studied for only about five years, and the UCSD group is the first to show that the fibers can convert light over this range.

The researchers' major motivation for converting wavelengths over this range, explains Radic, was to improve submarine communications, in which signals are sent both under water and through the air to aircraft. Water transmission requires blue and green light, with wavelengths between 490 and 530 nanometers, he says, because water molecules don't absorb the energy of light at this wavelength and therefore the signal remains strong.

However, Radic says, the current device technology for these wavelengths is not as advanced as it is for the telecommunications wavelengths. His research, he hopes, might provide the basis for a so-called "universal band translator" that could convert any wavelength of light to and from 1,550 nanometers, not just to 515 nanometers. Such a device would make telecommunication technology useful for any wavelength of light.

And the implications of this research extend even further, Radic says. "When we started doing this for submarine applications," he says, "I didn't understand the true applications." The team is now working with a partner to develop a surgical laser, he says, that takes advantage of the capabilities of telecom switches to turn on and off very rapidly. It will use converted green light -- a color of laser that can, for instance, "deliver the most damage" to a tumor's blood supply.

Additionally, this wavelength conversion technology could create better electronic displays. Currently, traditional television and LCD screens rely on varying intensities of red, green, and blue light that together produce a range of colors for each pixel. But with a fast, tunable laser addressing each pixel on the display, Radic says, "one could synthesize any color on the fly" when the laser is paired with a universal band translator. Instead of using a mixture of the three primary colors in each pixel, the tunable laser would supply one pure color per pixel. "In principle," he says, "the resolution of the display could be tripled."

It's early research, though, and the technology needs to be developed further. In order to move the project closer to such applications, custom-designed photonic crystal fibers need to be developed that can effectively confine all wavelengths of light used in the conversion process, says McKinstrie of Lucent. The field of wavelength conversion in photonic crystal fiber is still in its early days, but the research is "an enormous step along the way," says Boyd.