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 of Nottingham. Wannier-Stark effect, exists in superlattices. Electron states in quantum wells respond sensitively to moderate electric fields either by the quantum confined Stark effect in the case of wide barriers or by Wannier-Stark localization in the case of a superlattice. Both effects lead to large changes of the optical properties near the absorption edge, which are useful for intensity modulation and optical switching. Namely, in a mathematical point of view, if an electric field is applied to a superlattice the relevant Hamiltonian exhibits an additional scalar potential. If an eigenstate exists, then the states corresponding to wave functions are