light is a wave, and can be lasered (bounced back and forth and aligned...) Can any wave form be 'lasered'?

Question

such as sound waves? what are the limitations of 'lasering'?

Answer 1

It wouldn't work with a sound wave. Light is composed of "particles" called photons which have many wave-like properties, and it can travel through a vacuum for very long distances. Sound is just a compression wave that travels through a medium, and it always loses intensity the farther it travels. Bouncing a sound wave back and forth will weaken the sound, not intensify it.

Answer 2

Lasers work according to a quantum effect: that the intensity of the beam can be regarded as a collection of photons, all acting the same.
When there are atoms in an excited state ready to "release" their energy, the photons they produce will, under the right circumstances, join the other photons in the same exact state.

In principle, you could do this with phonons (quanta of sound vibration) and gravitons (quanta of gravitational waves); but not with electrons, protons, neutrons, or most other particles.

In fact, the problem with both gravitons and phonons is that there is no direct mechanism by which atoms are readily able to "dump" energy in the form of gravitons or phonons. So it remains merely a conceptual possibility, without any definite proposed mechanism.

Indeed, the very existence of gravitons is only a theoretical expectation, no one has been able to measure them yet. Phonons have been measured in crystals, but I don't know of a way to couple a quantum source of energy to the vibrational mechanism. (But maybe someone will be cleverer than me, and figure one out.)

(Sometime people have talked about "free-electron lasers". This is really a misnomer: there is no actual lasering going on, it's "marketing". )

Answer 3

The first answerer has it right but backwards. Light is a transverse wave. Longitudinal waves (like sound) can do many of the same things transverse waves can in focusing and things like that. AFAIK, there is no true analogue to a laser for them though. There are folks working on warfare systems to focus a beam of sound, but it is not really like a laser.

Answer 4

The wave has to have fairly high energy. Lowest wavelength "lasers" are microwave/gas lasers or "masers".

Answer 5

I can not be sure that every frequencies have been lasered

I have looked X-rays can be lasered (see link)

For other electromagnetic waves see maser (microwaves)

Answer 6

I think any longitudinal wave can. I'm not sure about transverse waves.

Answer 7

light is not wave, light is made of photons. the packages of energy.