Communicating with submarines while they prowl the seas has been one of the longstanding challenges for the military. Now, naval researchers say they have made headway on an innovative way to use undersea laser that could be used to communicate with submarines.
The idea is to use lasers beams to create sound through mini-explosions. "One of the peculiar effects of high-intensity laser beams is that they can actually focus themselves when passing through some materials, like water," reports the BBC. "As the laser focuses, it rips electrons off water molecules, which then become superheated and create a powerful 'pop'."
The "pop," according to naval researchers, is actually an explosion of steam creating a 220 dB sound pulse. The laser pulses could originate from either a submarine under the water or an aircraft above.
During the Cold War,communicating with submerged submarines was critical in case of a nuclear exchange. Radio waves don't propagate well through sea water, so scientists looked to other methods, like very low frequency and extremely low frequency radio waves. The idea is to pass on messages to submarines, without the need for them to surface (and thus potentially giving away their location). Although this requirement is not as critical as it once was, the the U.S. Navy clearly remains interested in the underwater communications challenge.
[Photo: Naval Research Laboratory]
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