US military researchers are developing a method for communication that uses lasers to make sound underwater.

美国军方研究人员正在研究一种使用激光在水中发声的通信方法。

The approach could use commercially available lasers

The approach focuses laser light to produce bubbles of steam that pop and create tiny, 220-decibel（分贝） explosions.

Controlling the rate of these explosions could provide a means of communication or even acoustic¹ imaging（声成像）.

Researchers at the US Naval² Research Laboratory say the approach could be used for air-to-submarine or fully³ underwater communication.

One of the peculiar⁴（奇怪的，特殊的） effects of high-intensity laser beams is that they can actually focus themselves when passing through some materials, like water.

As the laser focuses, it rips electrons off water molecules⁵, which then become superheated and create a powerful "pop".

Because different colours of light travel at markedly different speeds underwater, the precise location where different colours focus together could be manipulated by the suitable design of a many-coloured input⁶ pulse.

Those same focusing effects are significantly reduced in air, so that a laser "signal" could be launched from an airborne（空运的，空中传播的） source to communicate with submarines, so that they do not need to surface.

The idea could also be used for underwater acoustic imaging, by using a moveable mirror to direct the pulses into an array of pops whose echoes can give a detailed⁷ picture of underwater terrain（地带，地域）.