A team of engineers from Purdue University have successfully built a time cloak that hides messages in laser light. This technique is called temporal cloaking and uses lasers and fiber optics to hide data.
The technique works by separating strands of light frequencies and slowing photon speed, which allows messages and data to be inserted in gaps created when photons decrease the intensity of light. The data and messages then travel and arrive at the other end of the cloak with the photons.
“The device works by means of two communications channels based on lasers with two different frequencies. One of the frequencies is normal, in that it’s not time cloaked. The second is time cloaked and thus events that occur in it are hidden, except from those that know how to access them. The light from both channels travels down the same length of fiber cable, allowing someone who knows about the cloaked channel to tap in to the correct one to gain access to the data it holds. This approach allows those in the know to access hidden data, and also to fend off interlopers hoping to disrupt the communications,” according to researchers.
Researchers also believe this discovery will become useful in security applications and in improving data transmissions in the future.
