New low-power laser alternative ‘offers numerous engineering applications’

Scientists in the US have created a groundbreaking alternative to traditional laser technology that could offer a wide variety of new engineering applications.

A team from the University of Michigan has developed the first polariton laser that is fueled by electrical current as opposed to light and that functions at room temperature, instead of in below-zero conditions.

Part light and part matter, polaritons are harnessed by the technology to produce a light beam in a far more energy efficient manner than normal lasers. The new prototype requires 1,000 times less electricity to operate than its conventional counterpart made of the same material.

This could advance efforts to put lasers on computer circuits to replace wire connections, leading to smaller and more powerful electronics. The researchers also believe polariton lasers could be used for medical applications.

Pallab Bhattacharya, a professor of engineering at the University of Michigan, said: "This is big. For the past 50 years, we have relied on lasers to make coherent light and now we have something else based on a totally new principle."

Created in the 1950s, lasers have a number of medical and surgical uses. The term was initially an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, a definition that the new polariton laser does not actually fit, as it does not stimulate radiation emission.