A team of physics researchers including Kansas State University has developed a new class of lasers that will help scientists measure distances to distant targets, determine the presence of certain gases in the atmosphere, Send back images of the Earth. These energy-efficient lasers are portable, produce light at hard-to-reach wavelengths, and have the potential to scale to high power. The new laser, invented by Brian Washburn and Kristan Corwin, is an associate professor of physics at the Kansas State University School of Art and Science, as well as Andrew Jones, a Ph.D. candidate in physics, who graduated in May 2012, and Physics, which graduated in May 2014 Graduate Rajeshkadel. Other contributors include three New Mexico University physics and astronomy researchers: lifelong professor and faculty director Wolfgang Rudolf, research assistant professor Vasudevan Nampoothiri and doctoral student Amarin Ratanavis; and optical and photon physicist John Zavada from Virginia contacted them Together. The new lasers are fiber-based and use a variety of molecular gases to produce the laser. They are different from the traditional glass bulbs that are bulky and have mirrors to reflect light. The new laser uses a hollow core fiber with a honeycomb structure to store gas and light. This fiber is filled with molecular gases such as hydrogen cyanide or acetylene. Another laser is used to excite these gases, causing a molecule in the excited gas to glow spontaneously. Then the other molecules in the gas quickly shine behind, creating a laser. "By focusing the gas inside the core of the hollow core, we can get very high light intensity without injecting a lot of energy into the laser," said Corwin. "If you have a glass tube of the same size and inject light into it, the light leaks from the side, and in fact it's structure makes it workable." The structure is also portable. Compared with traditional lasers that are fragile and cumbersome and not easily movable, these researchers have invented fiber lasers that are more durable, have a thickness of only one hairline, and can be wound for compact storage and shipping. "Small is good," Washburn said. "You can roll the fiber like a rope." The process of the invention begins after Zavada brings together Washburn and Corwin, a technology that packs gas into hollow fibers, and Rudolph and Nampoothiri, which specializes in optical pumping gas lasers. The inventors' lasers use gas, a popular method before manufacturers switch to solid state materials. For example, grocery store scanners were gas lasers until the mid-1990s, and grocery store scanners now use solid-state lasers. "What we did was use the media in old-fashioned technology in a new way of packaging," Washburn said. The researchers, funded by the U.S. Air Force Scientific Research and Research Laboratories, are continuing to study and improve the laser using fibers from Fetah Benabid of the Xlim Institute at Limoges University, France. US Patent No. 9106055: "Inflatable Hollow Fiber" was licensed in 2015 by a non-profit organization responsible for managing technology transfer at the Kansas State University Research Foundation-Kansas State University, the University of New Mexico Technology Transfer Owned by Economic Development Organization STC.UNM and Zavada.