The World’s Smallest Laser

Just in time for its 50th birthday party, the world’s smallest laser has arrived. It’s 30 millionths of a metre long, it could revolutionise microprocessors as we know them, and it emits an impossibly adorable “pew pew”.

The microlaser, which was developed over the last year and a half in Zurich, is actually shorter than the wavelength of the light it emits, a feat made possible by the use of an electrical resonant circuit as opposed to the conventional optical one.

The researchers suggested that this technique could yield lasers small enough to replace transistors, leading to vastly more efficient microprocessors. The mosquitoes, on the other hand, are glad that they finally have something a little more manageable fight back with. [ETH Life via Nanowerk]