The NIST and the University of Colorado at Boulder have developed an ultraviolet laser amplifier that preserves the pulse spacing of the input beam. Combined with infrared laser pulses lasting only a few femtoseconds (that’s really fast—the time it takes light to move one hundred-thousandth of an inch, or three tenths of a micron). So what does this mean to you and me?
Well, nothing really. Femtosecond pulses will be used to make super accurate clocks, but the UV femtosecond pulses can be used to image very tiny stuff. The size of stuff that a probe beam can image clearly is proportional to the beam’s wavelength, so a UV beam can image smaller stuff than an infrared beam, and an electron beam can image stuff smaller still. A UV laser that pulses so fast is like having a tiny video camera with a super high speed shutter, so look for groundbreaking advancements in spider-mite porn.
Credit: JILA
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