perplexus.info :: Science : Ultrashort colour

Ultrashort colour (Posted on 2006-10-06)

Recently physicists have managed to build "attosecond lasers", lasers which emit pulses 10^-18 seconds long, interrupted by much longer periods of darkness (at least 10^-14 seconds). Before them, lasers emitting femtosecond (10^-15 seconds) pulses have been around. Assuming they produce visible light, what colour is it?

See The Solution Submitted by vswitchs

Rating: 3.7500 (4 votes)

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Puzzle Thoughts

Comment 15 of 15 |

Lasers emitting ultrashort pulses in the visible range are white.

Due to the uncertainty principle, the uncertainty in energy, and hence in frequency, is proportional to the inverse of the time uncertainty, which is of the order of the pulse length. This gives a frequency uncertainty of 1015 Hertz, larger than the frequency range of visible light (4 1014 to 7.5 1014 Hertz).

Posted by K Sengupta on 2023-04-25 21:35:21

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