A team of researchers from the School of Physics at the University of St Andrews has developed tiny lasers that could revolutionize our understanding and treatment of many diseases, including cancer. The research, published in Nature Communications, involved developing miniscule lasers, with a diameter of less than a thousandth of a millimeter, and inserting them…
Building Powerful Computers that Run Error-free
Sebastian Krinner is the first winner of the Lopez-Loreta Prize at ETH Zurich. The physicist has a clear goal: he wants to build a quantum computer that is not only powerful, but also works without errors. “Here, at the very bottom of this white container, are the circuits,” explains Sebastian Krinner with evident pride, after…
NRL Demonstrates New Non-Mechanical Laser Steering Technology
Scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory have recently demonstrated a new nonmechanical chip-based beam steering technology that offers an alternative to costly, cumbersome and often unreliable and inefficient mechanical gimbal-style laser scanners. The chip, known as a steerable electro-evanescent optical refractor, or SEEOR, takes laser light in the mid-wavelength infrared (MWIR) as an input…
Lasers Could Aid Memory and Treat Anxiety
Seeing a therapist for anxiety may soon include seeing a laser as well. Eric Zaizar, graduate student in clinical psychology, and Michael Telch, psychology professor and principal investigator of the project, are currently studying whether a non-invasive laser could increase the efficiency and reduce the relapse rate of exposure therapy, the leading treatment for anxiety.…
Terahertz Laser Pulses Intensify Optical Phonons in Solids
A study led by scientists of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science in Hamburg presents evidence of the amplification of optical phonons in a solid by intense terahertz laser pulses. These light bursts excite atomic vibrations to very large amplitudes, where their…
Laser Measures Earth’s Magnetic Field with Artificial Stars
An international collaboration uses laser-generated stars to determine the Earth’s magnetic field in the sodium layer of the atmosphere. The mesosphere, at heights between 85 and 100 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, contains a layer of atomic sodium. Astronomers use laser beams to create artificial stars, or laser guide stars (LGS), in this layer for…
Computer Chips Cool Down with Laser Metal Printing
Researchers from Binghamton University’s Mechanical Engineering Department have developed a manufacturing technique that will keep electronics cooler by 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit), allowing for faster, more efficient computation. Assistant Professor Scott Schiffres and graduate students Arad Azizi and Matthias A. Daeumer who worked on the study explained that those 10 degrees are vital…
Shrink Ray Harmlessly Shoots Laser through Cells
Researchers are studying cell behavior by shooting a high-intensity laser through cells without causing any damage. The laser’s target is not the cell itself but the jelly-like material surrounding the cells, which is called the hydrogel. Its use could help scientists understand organs are created and heal after injury. In a paper published by the…
Space Laser Monitors Earth’s Forests
A new NASA laser instrument set to launch to the International Space Station in December will help scientists create the first three-dimensional map of the world’s temperate and tropical forests. The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation, or GEDI, is scheduled to launch on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. From the station, GEDI’s advanced laser technology will reveal…
Biomimetics Play Chemical Tricks on the Blood
The job of hemoglobin in our body seems to be quite simple: It transports oxygen molecules through our bloodstream. But this only works so well because the hemoglobin molecule is extremely complex. The same applies to chlorophyll, which converts sunlight into energy for plants. In order to understand the subtle tricks of such complex molecules,…
Lasers Extract Data from Wind Tunnels
It’s about speed, and Sandia National Laboratories, with a hypersonic wind tunnel and advanced laser diagnostic technology, is in an excellent position to help U.S. defense agencies understand the physics associated with aircraft flying five times the speed of sound. With potential adversaries reporting successes in their own programs to develop aircraft that can be…
Lasers Travel Faster than Speed of Light
Scientists have produced an extremely bright spot of light that can travel at any speed — including faster than the speed of light. Researchers have found a way to use this concept, called “flying focus,” to move an intense laser focal point over long distances at any speed. Their technique includes capturing some of the…
Lasers Blast Antimatter into Existence
Antimatter is an exotic material that vaporizes when it contacts regular matter. If you hit an antimatter baseball with a bat made of regular matter, it would explode in a burst of light. It is rare to find antimatter on Earth, but it is believed to exist in the furthest reaches of the universe. Amazingly,…
Laser Technology Functions as Earth’s ‘Porch Light’
If extraterrestrial intelligence exists somewhere in our galaxy, a new MIT study proposes that laser technology on Earth could, in principle, be fashioned into something of a planetary porch light — a beacon strong enough to attract attention from as far as 20,000 light years away. The research, which author James Clark calls a “feasibility…
Laser-activated Sealants Outperform Sutures for Tissue Repair
NIBIB funded researchers have developed laser-activated nanomaterials that integrate with wounded tissues to form seals that are superior to sutures for containing body fluids and preventing bacterial infection. Tissue repair following injury or during surgery is conventionally performed with sutures and staples, which can cause tissue damage and complications, including infection. Glues and adhesives have…
Inexpensive Technique Examines Samples at Infrared Wavelengths
A cheap, compact technique for analyzing samples at infrared wavelengths using visible-wavelength components could revolutionize medical and material testing. Infrared spectroscopy is used for material analysis, in forensics and in the identification of historical artifacts, for example — but scanners are bulky and expensive. Visible-wavelength technology is cheap and accessible in items such as smartphone…
Missile Defense Laser Concept Continues Advancement
The Missile Defense Agency has awarded Lockheed Martin a nine month, $25.5 million contract extension to continue development of its Low Power Laser Demonstrator (LPLD) missile interceptor concept. This program, awarded Aug. 31, builds on a 2017 contract to develop an initial LPLD concept. Lockheed Martin’s LPLD concept consists of a fiber laser system on…
Another Institution Joins Nationwide High-intensity Laser Network
Nationwide High-intensity Laser Network Finds a Home
The University of Texas at Austin will be a key player in LaserNetUS, a new national network of institutions operating high-intensity, ultrafast lasers. The overall project, funded over two years with $6.8 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, aims to help boost the country’s global competitiveness in high-intensity laser…
Laser Technique Dispenses Ultra-tiny Metal Droplets
Thanks to a laser technique that ejects ultra-tiny droplets of metal, it is now possible to print 3D metal structures, not only simple “piles” of droplets, but complex overhanging structures as well: like a helix of some microns in size, made of pure gold. Using this technique, it will be possible to print new 3D…
Weyl Fermions See the Light
Researchers from the Theory Department of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Hamburg and North Carolina State University in the U.S. have demonstrated that the long-sought magnetic Weyl semi-metallic state can be induced by ultrafast laser pulses in a three-dimensional class of magnetic materials dubbed pyrochlore iridates. Their results,…
Scientists Create Flat Tellurium
In the way things often happens in science, Amey Apte wasn’t looking for two-dimensional tellurium while experimenting with materials at Rice University. But there it was. “It’s like I tried to find a penny and instead found a dollar,” he says. Apte and his colleagues made tellurium, a rare metal, into a film less than…
Fine-tuned Lasers Improve Pacemakers
In Tolochenaz, Switzerland, the U.S. medtech company Medtronic produces one out of five heart pacemakers available on the global market and one out of four defibrillators. The electronics of these implantable devices are housed in titanium cases, which thus far were welded hermetically with a solid state flash laser. However, the lasers are high-maintenance and…
Laser Light Plays Quantum Soccer
Physicists from the University of Bonn have presented a method that may be suitable for the production of so-called quantum repeaters. These should improve the transmission of quantum information over long distances. The researchers used an effect with which light particles can be shot in a much more targeted manner. Their results appear in the…
Laser Kicks Out Charged Particles
Improvements in how samples are prepared will add range and flexibility to a method that detects the location of selected molecules within a biological sample, such as a slice of tissue. In the chemical analysis tool known as matrix-assisted laser-desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI MS), a laser beam kicks charged particles, known as ions, out of…