A research team, coordinated by Germán J. de Valcárcel Gonzalvo, Professor at the University of Valencia, has developed a new theory —the coherent master equation— that describes the behavior of pulsed lasers based on fast materials and highlights its effects of quantum coherence.
These lasers can emit intense pulses of light of one billionth of a second at a constant rate and have great technological and scientific impact. Mode-locked (ML) pulsed lasers find a wide variety of applications in medical-surgical, microscopy, spectroscopy or telecommunications techniques, as well as in basic science experiments that enable research on fundamental phenomena. They are also important in precision metrology based on optical frequency combs .
The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, opens the door to the design of new types of lasers, especially with semiconductor materials, from quantum theory, which describes in particular the interactions between of matter and luminous radiation electrons.