MATERIALS SCIENCE: Long-Wavelength Lasers Sniff Out New Uses

Just a few weeks after two physicists won the Nobel Prize for figuring out how to make lasers out of semiconductors, researchers announced that they have made those lasers much more useful. A new technique permits the lasers to shine light in regions of the infrared spectrum previously inaccessible to similar devices. The advance may open the door to cheap devices to sniff explosives and other robotic sensors.