Scientific Breakthrough: World's First Continuous Spectrum White Laser Created by Scientists of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences

An unusual method for creating a continuous white spectrum laser beam was used by employees of the gas laser laboratory of the Institute of High-Current Electronics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Tomsk, under the leadership of Yuri Panchenko, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics.

Previously, white light was obtained only by adding rays of different colors, but Tomsk scientists invented another method. They directed ultrashort pulses of an infrared laser directly into the air. The main component of air—nitrogen—under the influence of this radiation began to generate light itself, which the human eye perceives as a pure white beam.

This is the world's first laser in which white light is born naturally at one point, rather than being assembled from individual colors.

According to senior researcher Vladimir Prokopiev, this laser can be used in fundamental physics, high-precision microscopy, medicine (in particular, it can be used for detailed visualization of tissues), as well as in environmental monitoring systems of the atmosphere for pollution.

The achievement has already been included in the list of the most important fundamental results of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the organization's press service reported. Researchers are now working to improve the efficiency of the device and reduce its size.

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