Sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation mechanism into the active medium is the existence of superlattice layers that reflect the phonons back and force them to bounce repeatedly to amplify sound. Therefore, to proceed to an understanding of a SASER design we need to imagine it in analogy with a laser device. In a laser, the active medium is placed between two mirror surfaces (reflectors)of a Fabry–Pérot interferometer. A spontaneously emitted photon inside this interferometer can force excited atoms to decay a photon of same frequency, same momentum, same polarization and same phase. Because the momentum (as a vector) of the photon is nearly parallel to
Sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation operates at about 440 GHz, while the Caltech device operates in the megahertz range. According to a member of the Nottingham group, the two approaches are complementary and it should be possible to use one device or the other to create coherent phonons at any frequency in the megahertz to terahertz range. A significant result rises from the operating frequency of these devices. The differences between the two devices suggest that SASERs could be made to operate over a wide range of frequencies. Work on the SASER continues at the University of Nottingham, the "Lashkarev Institute of Semiconductor Physics" at