Optical Frequency Combs
7 comments
·January 30, 2025dtgriscom
mercurywells
Red light does go through non-vacuum faster than blue light. They're equal in a vacuum.
packetlost
I worked closely with some of these devices at a previous employer. Might've even fried one at some point. I'm pretty excited about what other things they can be used for!
high_priest
Nice to see some more posts about light communications on HN. I have had the pleasure talking with people who developed this tech & see it in action.
Apparently, it is a big step towards purely optical network switching.
CamperBob2
Once optical comb sources become economically available off the shelf, they should be game-changers in several fields from spectroscopy to time/frequency work. Right now everything you can buy is still around 6 figures AFAIK.
lutherqueen
> seamlessly connected to optical waves that oscillate at 10,000 times higher frequencies
Somehow four orders of magnitude sound too less for the transition from radio to light, but it makes sense. A i9 processor works at ~6 GHz, and light is at the THz range
AdamH12113
Microwave communication goes comfortably into the tens of gigahertz range, and visible light is in the hundreds of terahertz. So it is about a factor of 10,000.
Perhaps I'm being pedantic, but in the video, when they show multi-spectral light coming in from the left, they show low-frequency light moving faster than high-frequency light. ("Survey says: EEEEEHHHHHNNNNNNK!")
I was also hopeful the video would have actual info on how they work, but no such luck. Just a lot of "Are they cool, or what?".