electromagnetic radiation

While most of the world looked forward to the switch from analog to digital TV for the sharper picture and clearer sound, astronomers around the US anticipated the changeover period for a totally different reason: clarity. In the brief period between the removal of analog television signals and the assignment of those frequencies to other devices like cell phones, astronomers will get their first look at a time in the universe that has been obscured from telescopes since Wally and the Beav roamed the airwaves.

Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California successfully converted sound waves to light radiation by reversing a process that transforms electricity to sound, which is commonly used in cell phones. This is the first time that sound has been converted to light. The findings, which were published this week in Nature Physics, could improve how computer chips, LEDs, and transistors are made, and also have applications in ultrafast materials science and terahertz radiation (T-ray) generation.

The research team initially predicted that the conversion was possible around a year ago, using computer modeling, and has been trying to confirm it in the lab ever since.