Sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation was first experimentally demonstrated in the Gigahertz range in 2009. Announced in 2010, two independent groups came up with two different devices that produce coherent phonons at any frequency in the range megahertz to terahertz. One group from the University of Nottingham consisted of A.J. Kent and his colleagues R.P. Beardsley, A.V. Akimov, W. Maryam and M. Henini. The other group from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) consisted of Ivan S. Grudinin, Hansuek Lee, O. Painter and Kerry J. Vahala from Caltech implemented a study on Phonon Laser Action in a tunable two-level system. The University of Nottingham device
Sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation short-wavelength (in the terahertz range) phonons are produced. Since the electrons are confined to the quantum wells existing within the lattice, the transmission of their energy depends upon the phonons they generate. As these phonons strike other layers in the lattice, they excite electrons, which produce further phonons, which go on to excite more electrons, and so on. Eventually, a very narrow beam of high-frequency ultrasound exits the device. Semiconductor superlattices are used as acoustic mirrors. These superlattice structures must be in the right size obeying the theory of multilayer distributed Bragg reflector, in similarity with multilayer dielectric mirrors in