A phonon laser: Coherent vibrations from a self-breathing resonator

Lasing--the emission of a collimated light beam of light with a well-defined wavelength (color) and phase--results from a self-organization process, in which a collection of emission centers synchronizes itself to produce identical light particles (photons). A similar self-organized synchronization phenomenon can also lead to the generation of coherent vibrations--a phonon laser, where phonon denotes, in analogy to photons, the quantum particles of sound.