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NONLINEAR OPTICS

A narrow twist

One hundred years ago, in 1922, Léon Brillouin discovered the scattering of light by sound waves. Within an optical fibre, Brillouin scattering may be used to create narrow-linewidth filters and spectrometers. A twisted optical fibre is now used to reduce these linewidths by over an order of magnitude, down to the sub-MHz level.

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Fig. 1: Exploiting Brillouin scattering and ultra-narrow spectral features.

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Correspondence to Thiago Alegre or Gustavo Wiederhecker.

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Alegre, T., Wiederhecker, G. A narrow twist. Nat. Photon. 16, 482–484 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-022-01029-4

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