(PhysOrg.com) -- As photonics -- using beams of light in place
of electricity for communications and computing -- becomes more
common, engineers need new tools for troubleshooting. Now
researchers at Cornell have created a way to plot the waveform
of an ultrashort-lived optical signal with a resolution of less
than a trillionth of a second. Several current methods can
measure such brief waveforms by averaging many repeating events,
but the new method -- using an "ultrafast optical oscilloscope"
-- can catch those frustrating events that happen only once in a
while, the Cornell researchers said. "We can make measurements
of very short optical phenomena. The signal can be very weak,
and it doesn't have to be repetitive," said Alexander Gaeta,
Cornell professor of applied and engineering physics.
Applications include analyzing intermittent glitches in fiber-
optic communications and observing such fast-moving events as
chemical reactions or laser fusion, he said. The device is
described in the Nov. 6 issue of the