00:04Lasers are becoming more and more useful for scientists all the time but without focusing
00:08them they scatter and their usefulness diminishes now researchers at the University of Maryland
00:13have achieved a groundbreaking landmark they've been able to confine a self-focusing laser
00:18to a small framework of air the most standard way of focusing lasers to a particular point
00:22are fiber optics lasers travel down the optical pathway and can be sent anywhere but it requires
00:27the optical fibers to be connected the new experiment used what's called an air waveguide
00:32or where other laser pulses are used to corral the laser light it turns out the pulses of lasers
00:37heat air leaving a tube of lower density air inside those heated molecules so using this
00:42principle researchers guided laser light down a 45-foot long hallway and itself focused itself
00:47for the duration in fact this is what the laser light looked like at the endpoint without the
00:51air waveguide and this is what it looked like with the air waveguide a market improvement
00:55which the researchers say could mean someday soon we could be sending messages via light
01:00without fiber optic cables
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