When in 1927 Alexei Tolstoy completed work on his new novel "The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin", he hardly thought that he would ever be called the author of the laser idea and the visionary who predicted the emergence of a new scientific and technical discipline - photonics. But in one thing, his foresight turned out to be one hundred percent: "hyperboloids" will really turn the world upside down.
QUANTUM BEAM
For the first time, "heat" rays, burning everything around, were described by HG Wells in the novel "War of the Worlds", published in 1898. The idea seemed productive: science fiction writers, journalists and even authoritative scientists began to discuss hypothetical rays. For example, the famous inventor Nikola Tesla claimed that he was working on the "death rays" (he called them Teleforce), which were a "concentrated beam of particles" and should, according to his plan, stop all wars, since there is no defense against them. Alas, but the peacemaking "death rays" were, apparently, from those inventions of Tesla, which he never managed to bring to life.
The real way to create high-energy rays was pointed out by Albert Einstein, who in 1916 put forward a hypothesis about the existence of stimulated radiation. He said that it is really possible to bring the atoms of any object into an excited state, after which it will actively begin to emit photons, and in the required spectrum range. Later, Paul Dirac substantiated Einstein's hypothesis in the framework of quantum mechanics, and experimental confirmation of the existence of stimulated radiation was obtained in 1928.
However, the appearance of the first devices capable of emitting a directional high-energy beam had to wait. The priority in this area belongs to the American physicist Theodore Maiman. On May 16, 1960, he demonstrated to colleagues the work of the first laser - an optical quantum generator, which got its name from the abbreviation LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). As an active medium (that is, an object in an excited state), Maiman used an artificial ruby crystal, which was irradiated with a gas-discharge lamp and emitted a narrowly directed light flux. Subsequently, the physicist founded his own company, Corad Corporation, which became a leading developer of high-power lasers.
THE FUTURE OF LASERS
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It is difficult to imagine the modern world without lasers. They are used almost everywhere. The ability of lasers to create a high-power energy flow allows them to be used in industry: for cutting, welding, soldering, marking and engraving. Because the beam can be focused to a micron-sized point, it is ideal for making printed circuit boards and semiconductor connections. The precise directionality of the beam makes it possible to create reading devices and medical equipment. Etc.
Attempts have been made to build beam weapons. For example, US military engineers have designed the SHEL laser system to be deployed on a Boeing 747 YAL-1 special aircraft. It was designed to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles. More than $ 5 billion was spent on the project, and during tests held in February 2010, the laser even shot down three target missiles. However, due to the discrepancy between the actual characteristics and the declared ones, the project was closed.
However, combat lasers can be used for peaceful purposes. On the basis of an automobile complex for combating missiles, built in Soviet times, by the efforts of specialists from the Troitsk Institute for Innovation and Thermonuclear Research, a carbon laser installation MLTK-50 was designed. It has shown excellent results in extinguishing a fire at a gas well in Karachaevsk, breaking up a rock mass, decontaminating the surface of concrete at a nuclear power plant by peeling and burning an oil film on the surface of the water area. In addition, on its basis, it is planned to create lasers for the restoration of rubbing surfaces of various industrial units and even for the destruction of harmful insects such as locusts.
BASICS OF PHOTONICS
It is clear that laser technologies will develop further. The most promising areas of their use are holographic screens, thermonuclear power engineering, research systems of interplanetary vehicles. But relatively recently, a direction has appeared in applied science that can revolutionize the entire modern electronic base. We are talking about photonics, which is engaged in fundamental and practical research in the field of using optical signals. In fact, it is analogous to electronics, only photons emitted by lasers are used instead of electrons.
It is interesting that photonics was "born" at Leningrad State University: in 1970, a corresponding department was even established there, and the Soviet academician Alexander Nikolaevich Terenin became its founder. From that moment on, the scientific school began to develop, which made our country the leader in photonics. The most famous device developed on its principles is fiber-optic cables, which dramatically increased the throughput of information channels.
Today the main work on photonics is carried out in Russian universities and the Advanced Research Foundation; in total over 850 organizations are employed. For example, a project has been launched to modernize the radar facilities available to our army. The transition from an electronic to a photonic base will make it possible to reduce the size of radar stations (a multi-storey building will turn into a small van) and increase their efficiency (resolution and immunity to electromagnetic interference will increase). It is noteworthy that the developers immediately think about the civilian application of this technology: compact radars can be used in high-speed trains and cars to instantly detect obstacles. Moreover, the technology will be used to create "smart" aircraft skin, thanks to which the entire fuselage will turn into a powerful radar,allowing pilots to see everything that happens around their "side" during the flight.
PHOTON WORLD
Photonics is developing in several directions. The youngest of them are optoinformatics and radiophotonics. Their purpose follows from the name: they are intended to replace existing computer and network technologies. To show the advantages that photonics provides in this area, it is enough to mention that the ultrafast photonic switch, created at Moscow State University, makes it possible to raise the speed of information transfer over fiber optic cable to hundreds of terabits per second (the limit for modern cables is one hundred terabits per second). The emergence of photonic communications, which will replace the classical ones, also makes it possible to halve energy consumption and, accordingly, the cost of data storage and storage systems. For example, in the US, data centers already consume 2% of all energy produced,and the savings in the transition to photons will be very significant.
The challenge for the near future is the creation of a photonic computer, which is believed to significantly outperform semiconductor systems in performance. Its connection with high-speed optical communications and light-sensitive surfaces opens the way to the emergence of intelligent devices of a fundamentally new type - miniature and mobile, but at the same time possessing the ability to process non-encoded information and self-learn. It is highly probable that it is from photonics that an artificial intelligence will one day be born.
In the novels of modern science fiction writers, one can find super-beings "woven" from light and force fields, powerful and benevolent. Perhaps this image will turn out to be a prophetic vision - just as the images of "heat rays" and "hyperboloid" turned out to be prophetic.
Anton Pervushin