Spiderweb-like lasers can emit light in controlled colours

Researchers have created a laser system based on a network like a spider's web, which can be precisely controlled to produce different light colours. The system, invented by a team led by researchers at Imperial College London with partners in Italy and Switzerland, could be used in new sensing and computing applications. The team are already collaborating with research and industrial partners across Europe to explore applications in machine learning. We believe this will be at the heart of light processing on chips and we are testing it now as a machine learning hardware. Professor Riccardo Sapienza In traditional lasers, light bounces between two mirrors in a material that amplifies the light until it reaches a certain threshold. Laser light is produced in narrow beams that are stable over long distances. However, the light is usually only produced in one frequency, corresponding to a single colour.