中国科学家公布了世界上最强大的声子激光器

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Fig. 1 The microsphere, levitated by the dual beam optical tweezer (green), is driven by the active optomechanical system (red) to generate nonlinear phonon lasers (colored waves). Meanwhile, the injected electrical signal, represented by the white lightning mark, acts as a simple but powerful way to enhance the quality of the nonlinear phonon laser, shown as the colored spectrum. Credit: Guangzong Xiao, Tengfang Kuang, Yutong He, Xinlin Chen, Wei Xiong, Xiang Han, Zhongqi Tan, Hui Luo, Hui Jing

Fig. 2 The measured power spectrum (PSD) of phonons shows more than 3 orders enhancement in brightness and narrowed linewidth, revealing wide application scenarios covering audible and ultra-sound scope. Credit: Guangzong Xiao, Tengfang Kuang, Yutong He, Xinlin Chen, Wei Xiong, Xiang Han, Zhongqi Tan, Hui Luo, Hui Jing

Fig. 3 The phonon laser boosts the phononics to coherent regime with wider frequency range, thus can achieve higher accuracy and further broaden the application scenarios, such as lesion identification of multiform organs and tissues, deep-sea detection of flora and fauna. Credit: Guangzong Xiao, Tengfang Kuang, Yutong He, Xinlin Chen, Wei Xiong, Xiang Han, Zhongqi Tan, Hui Luo, Hui Jing

据《科技日报》（scitechdaily）网站2024年10月4日刊发来自中国科学院长春光学精密机械研究所光学术出版中心（Light Publishing Center, Changchun Institute of Optics）提供的消息，中国科学家公布了世界上最强大的声子激光器（Chinese Scientists Unveil the World’s Most Powerful Sound Laser）。

声子激光技术(phonon laser technology)的最新进展是利用声波而不是光，在医学成像和深海探测方面显示出有希望的新应用。一项新技术通过稳定和加强声波来增强这些激光器，从而实现更精确和更强大的输出。这一发展不仅改善了医疗和水下应用的现有用途，而且还将潜在用途扩展到材料科学和量子计算。相关研究结果于2024年9月5日已经在eLight杂志网站在线发表——Guangzong Xiao, Tengfang Kuang, Yutong He, Xinlin Chen, Wei Xiong, Xiang Han, Zhongqi Tan, Hui Luo, Hui Jing. Giant enhancement of nonlinear harmonics of an optical-tweezer phonon laser. eLight, 2024, 4, Article number: 17. DOI: 10.1186/s43593-024-00064-8. Published: 05 September 2024. https://elight.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s43593-024-00064-8

参与此项研究的有来自湖南长沙的国防科学技术大学（National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, Hunan, China）和湖南师范大学（Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan, China）的研究人员。

增强声子激光技术(Enhancing Phonon Laser Technology)

中国科学家在开发利用声波代替光的激光器方面取得了重大飞跃。这些声子激光器有望在医学成像、深海探测和其他领域取得进展。

这项新技术涉及到一个微小的电子推动，可以显著提高激光产生的声波的功率和精度。这为未来的设备在更广泛的应用中利用声音铺平了道路。

克服以往的局限(Overcoming Previous Limitations)

以前，由小物体制成的声子激光器受到微弱和不精确的声波的影响，限制了它们的用途。新方法通过将声波锁定在更稳定、更强大的状态来克服这一挑战。

这一突破为强大而精确的声子激光器铺平了道路，适用于现实世界的应用，如医学成像和深海探测。声子激光可以创造更灵敏、危害更小的医学成像技术，而深海交通工具可以实现改进的通信和导航。

更广泛的影响和未来前景(Broader Impact and Future Prospects)

声子激光器(Phonon lasers)也可以应用于材料科学、量子计算和其他领域。这项研究代表了声子激光发展的重要一步，潜在地开启了一系列新技术。

本研究得到了中国国家自然科学基金{National Natural Science Foundation of China（NSFC 11935006)}、湖南省杰出青年科学基金{Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of Hunan Province (2024JJ2055)}、湖南省科技创新计划{Science and Technology Innovation Program of Hunan Province (Grant No. 2020RC4047)}、湖南省科技重大突破计划{ Key Science and Technology Breakthrough Program of Hunan Province (2023ZJ1010)}、湖南省自然科学基金（Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province）以及中国国家重点研发计划{ National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2024YFE0102400)}的资助。

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Abstract

Phonon lasers, as mechanical analogues of optical lasers, are unique tools for not only fundamental studies of the emerging field of phononics but also diverse applications such as deep-ocean monitoring, force sensing, and biomedical ultrasonics. Recently, nonlinear phonon-lasing effects were observed in an opto-levitated micro-sphere, i.e., the spontaneous emerging of weak signals of high-order phonon harmonics in the phonon lasing regime. However, both the strengths and the quality factors of the emerging phonon harmonics are very poor, thus severely hindering their potential applications in making and utilizing nonlinear phonon-laser devices. Here we show that, by applying a single-colour electronic injection to this levitated system, giant enhancement can be achieved for all higher-order phonon harmonics, with more than 3 orders enhanced brightness and 5 orders narrowed linewidth. Such an electronically-enhanced phonon laser is also far more stable, with frequency stability extended from a dozen of minutes to over 1 h. More importantly, higher-order phonon correlations, as an essential lasing feature, are confirmed to be enhanced by the electronic injection as well, which as far as we know, has not been reported in previous works using this technique. This work, providing much stronger and better-quality signals of coherent phonon harmonics, is a key step towards controlling and utilizing nonlinear phonon lasers for applications such as phonon frequency combs, broadband phonon sensors, and ultrasonic bio-medical diagnosis.