Russian physicists have developed a method for drastically narrowing the emission spectrum of an ordinary diode laser, like that in a laser pointer. This makes their device a useful replacement for the more complex and expensive single-frequency lasers, enabling the creation of compact chemical analyzers that can fit into smartphones, cheap lidars for self-driving cars, as well as security and structural health monitoring systems on bridges, gas pipelines and elsewhere. The study was published Oct. 26 in Nature Photonicsand was co-authored by researchers from the Russian Quantum Center (RQC), the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU), and Samsung R&D Institute Russia.