Overview
- The University of Rochester and RIT reported a squeezed phonon laser in Nature Communications on Monday, showing far lower noise than earlier designs.
- The device uses optical tweezers to trap and levitate nanoparticles in vacuum, then light pushes and pulls their motion to squeeze fluctuations.
- The noise cut let the team measure acceleration more accurately than systems that use photon-based lasers or radio-frequency sources.
- Researchers say the advance could enable satellite-free quantum compasses and precise gravity sensors, though it remains a lab proof of concept.
- The project builds on a 2019 demo that was limited by noise and now points to uses such as surface acoustic wave sources for chips and future ultrasonic imaging.