Sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation

Sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (SASER) refers to a device that emits acoustic radiation. It focuses sound waves in a way that they can serve as accurate and high-speed carriers of information in many kinds of applications—similar to uses of laser light. Acoustic radiation (sound waves) can be emitted by using the process of sound amplification based on stimulated emission of phonons. Sound (or lattice vibration) can be described by a phonon just as light can be considered as photons, and therefore one can state that SASER is the acoustic analogue of the laser. In a SASER device, a source (e.g., an electric field as a pump) produces sound waves (lattice vibrations, phonons) that travel through an active medium. In this active medium, a stimulated emission of phonons leads to amplification of the sound waves, resulting in a sound beam coming out of the device. The sound wave beams emitted from such devices are highly coherent. The first successful SASERs were developed in 2009. Instead of a feedback-built wave of electromagnetic radiation (i.e., a laser beam), a SASER delivers a sound wave. SASER may also be referred to as phonon laser, acoustic laser or sound laser. SASERs could have wide applications. Apart from facilitating the investigation of terahertz-frequency ultrasound, the SASER is also likely to find uses in optoelectronics (electronic devices that detect and control light—as a method of transmitting a signal from an end to the other of, for instance, fiber optics), as a method of signal modulation and/or transmission. Such devices could be high precision measurement instruments and they could lead to high energy focused sound. Using SASERs to manipulate electrons inside semiconductors could theoretically result in terahertz-frequency computer processors, much faster than the current chips. This concept can be more conceivable by imagining it in analogy to laser theory.