Scientists have produced an extremely bright spot of light that can travel at any speed — including faster than the speed of light.
Researchers have found a way to use this concept, called "flying focus," to move an intense laser focal point over long distances at any speed. Their technique includes capturing some of the fastest movies ever recorded.
A "flying focus" combines a lens that focuses specific colors of light at different locations with the recent Nobel Prize winning chirped-pulse amplification technology, which organizes the colors of light in time.
Imagine a laser producing a continuously changing rainbow of colors that start with blue and end with red. Now focus the light with a lens that concentrates the red light close to the lens and blue light much farther from the lens.
Because of the time delay between the colors, the high-intensity focal point moves. By changing the time delay separating the different colors, this spot can be made to move at any speed.
Not really, though. ;-) To read more, click here.