Researchers in Germany may have revolutionized the Web forever by creating what is possibly the world’s fastest laser.
The laser is able to turn on and off at record-breaking speeds, which would be used to speed up how quickly data can be sent through the Internet.
“If one can now switch the laser on and off very fast, then more information is transported for a given time frame,” said Carsten Ronning, a scientist at Germany’s Friedrich Schiller University Jena, according to Mashable.
A group of scientists from the university are responsible for the record-breaking laser as well as scientists from Imperial College London.
Two main factors set the laser apart from past lasers – material and size.
Most lasers place the zinc oxide nanowire material on glass. This new laser, on the other hand, places it on silver, the Imperial College London explained in a recent press release.
The next big factor is size.
Scientists were able to shrink down the diameter of the laser, allowing it to function faster than any other laser created before it.
According to the press release, the laser is a thousandth the size of a human hair.
This means researchers were able to pack even more light into a smaller space.
So just how much faster is this laser?
The thin laser produces as many as 1 trillion pulses per second, the press release claims.
If that’s true, the researchers’ new laser is indeed the fastest laser ever created.
While other uses for the laser have not been thoroughly explored, researchers are absolutely positive that the laser could be used to increase Internet speeds.