Army and university researchers have pioneered an optical research breakthrough that could lead to more secure military communications and lightweight, rugged navigation gear for Soldiers in the field.
The research team, representing the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, known as DEVCOM, Army Research Laboratory and the University of Maryland, invented a pioneering method to guide light through hair-thin glass fibers with unprecedented precision by successfully sculpting microscopic bumps onto the surface of standard glass fibers using ultra-precise lasers.
By chaining 21 of these tiny bumps, known as microresonators, together, the team built what they call a specialized, one-way optical highway towards steering light waves around obstacles and preventing them from degrading or scattering.
The breakthrough, published in the journal Nature Communications, marks the first time scientists have successfully demonstrated this method of protective light-routing, known as topological photonics, on a fiber-optic system of this kind.
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