The Scottish school that became the United Kingdom's first technological university half a century ago has now developed a diamond laser technology that surpasses all others, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council said in a press release.

Although other scientists in Australia are working on Raman lasers, which use stimulated Raman scattering to amplify light, those produced by the Scottish team at the University of Strathclyde exceeds all others in that it harnesses polished diamonds to produce light beams with more power and in a wider range of colors. Additionally, the Strathclyde laser can shoot light continuously, while many other lasers are only able to shoot short pulses of light intermittently.

These characteristics are highly prized because certain colors of light can be effectively used for various medical treatments. Ocular bleeding can be treated with orangey-yellow light, for example.

The project's principal investigator Dr. Alan Kemp noted that instead of using crystals three to six centimeters in length, their lasers is capable of creating the same energy from a crystal only two to six millimeters long.