Convert char[] array to byte[] array in Java

I have spent a few hours trying to convert a char[] returned by a JPasswordField into a byte[] that I can encrypt in Java. Here is the conversion code that I finally came up with :

      public void testArrayConversionJapanese() {  
           String hello = new String("こんにちは世界");  
           char[] charArray = hello.toCharArray();  
           byte[] byteArray = new byte[charArray.length*2];  
           for (int i=0; i < charArray.length; i++) {  
                byteArray[i*2] = (byte) ((charArray[i] & 0xFF00) >> 8);  
                byteArray[i*2+1] = (byte) (charArray[i] & 0x00FF);  
           }  
           char[] chars2 = new char[byteArray.length/2];  
           for(int i=0; i < chars2.length; i++) {  
                //bytes must be & with 0x00FF to convert negative values into unsigned positive values  
                chars2[i] = (char) (((byteArray[i*2]&0x00FF) << 8) + (byteArray[i*2+1]&0x00FF));  
           }  
           String hello2 = new String(chars2);  
           assertEquals(hello, hello2);  
      }  

As you can see above, I have used basic array and shift operations for the conversion. This is much more efficient than using java.lang.Character, String and Byte classes to do the conversions.