320

Lasers down means that the temperafure has declined. In real life the cooling must, ofcourse, be done in three dimensions, necessitating three counterpropagating laser waves, but the principle is the same. The set of atoms cooled down is called optical molasses.* For sodium atoms and using a particular resonance, the lowest temperafure achievable was 240 pK, with theory and experiments in good agreement.

* Molasses (used as a singular noun) is a sticky sugary substance associated with cold temperatures. The saying is 'slow as molasses in January'.

12J3.11 Optical radar

One of the obvious device applications is in producing a radar. If it can be done with microwaves, why not with lasers? The wavelength is much smaller, so we may end up with higher accuracy in a smaller package. This is indeed the case; some of the optical radars may weigh less than 20 kg and can recognize a moving car as a car and not a blotch on a screen. They can also determine the position of objects (e.g. clouds, layers of- air turbulence. agents of pollurion; which do not give sufficient ret-lection at microrvave fiequencies. The trvo lasers used most often are YAG lasers at I .06 pi m and CO: lasers at 10.6 ;r"rn, the latter has the merit of being able to penetrate tbg. haze. and smoke. Optical radars are best known under the name of Lidar (light detection and ranging) but also as Ladar (laser detection and ranging) and Oadar (optical aids to dctection and

ranging).

12J3.12 Optical

discs

Once the laser was invented, applications t-or data storage came irntnediatel!'to mind. The first idea was to use holographic principles (see Section 12.13.18), but soon afterwards a much sirnpler solution vuas found. it uses a disc coated with a transparent organic dye in which pits are scorched by a small diode laser. Reading is again by a laser beam (wavelength 780 nm). based on the tact that light is reflected differently by the pits. These discs became knor.vn as CDs. or Compact Discs. Their storage capacity reached the figure of 700 MB. suitable for playing music for up to 80 minutes. The CD has probably been one of the most successful consumer products. Sales figures went up to billions. The next development in the field r.l'as the DVD. knorvn also as the Digital Versatile Disc, which uses a wavelength of 640 nm. That immediatelv increased the capacity by a factor of (780/640)2 : | .5. Further increases rvere achieved by using more sophisticated modulation and eror-correcting techniques. As a result, DVDs were capable of storing full-length films. Another technique to increase capacify was to use multiple recording layers. The capacity at the tilne of writing (late 2008) may reach up to 20 GB. Progress did not, of course, stop with the DVD. Motivation for even higher capacity came from the emergence of high-definition television (HD TV). which uses 1024 lines. Up to 2008 there were two contending formats but the competition ended with the victory of Blu-ray, championed originally by Sony over Toshiba's HD-DVD. The wavelength used is 405 nm, a colour variously described as blue or violet. Available capacities are 25 GB for a single layer and 50 GB for a double layer. In the laboratory, as many as 10 layers have been produced. It is diffrcult to predict the ultimate capacities obtainable rvith such discs. Although the DVD is an excellent device for storing information. it