Researchers develop a graphene-based phonon laser

A team of researchers, led by Professor Konstantin Arutyunov of the HSE Tikhonov Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics (MIEM HSE), has developed a graphene-based mechanical resonator, in which coherent emission of sound energy quanta, or phonons, has been induced. Such devices, called phonon lasers, could have wide potential for applications in information processing, as well as classical and quantum sensing of materials.

Using an analogy with photons, quanta of the electromagnetic spectrum, there are also particles of sound energy, phonons. In fact, these are artificially introduced objects in physics—quasi-particles, which correspond to vibrations of the crystal lattice of matter.