[I'm not sure how I feel about the doughnut-shaped laser beam, since it has become my new favorite scientific and technological innovation. Especially since scientists have managed to effectively create a sort of fiber optic cable out of thin air. Laser beams, wow. But why do we need laser optical fibers when we have standard fiberglass optical fibers?

The basic issue here is the use of light for data transfer. It is much faster than using metal cables, but data is easily lost due to expansion and contraction of the optical beam. A tactic to minimize such data loss is the use of fiber optic cables.

Fiber optic technology has provided us with dead slow Internet speeds since the 70s, but the kind of light beams needed for more powerful work can melt common fiber optic cables. So the question remains: how can we send light-based data over long distances if fiber is not available?

Thanks to Howard Milchberg and his research team at the University of Maryland, this question may be answered with a powerful laser beam rounded into the shape of a donut (via New Scientist (open in new tab)).

The researchers were able to create a 45-meter tube-like structure out of seemingly nothing by irradiating the laser for just 300 trillionths of a second. [The structure is called an "air waveguide" and works by blasting air particles with extreme heat, altering their structure to the extent that light pulses are trapped; 45 meters may not seem like a long distance, but it is far better than previous attempts made in 2014.

You may be disappointed to learn that this kind of technology is unlikely to end up improving broadband speeds with ultra high-power lasers. Fiber optics is a very close analog, but the application of air waveguides is in the more obscure field of biohazard detection. In the near future, this technology will be able to locate radioactive materials from miles away, but it will require more powerful lasers to achieve such distances.