'Hole' Fiber Fights Cancer

A holey fiber may be able to plug the "holes" in the list of laser colors affordable to most scientists. Biomedical researchers would like small and cheap lasers producing ultraviolet light for cancer detection and other types of tissue analysis. Now, a team of researchers reports that it has developed a simple device to convert commonly available laser light into these and other wavelengths. The converter is a hollow optical fiber made of a so-called photonic crystal material and filled with hydrogen gas. It is more efficient and requires a million times less power from the input laser than any such converter previously made.

A hollow-core optical fiber filled with hydrogen gas can convert a low-power laser beam from one wavelength to another with a simple, low-cost technique.

Image Credit: F. Benabid/Univ. of Bath

Read more about this research at Physical Review Focus.

Text courtesy of Physical Review Focus