· List topics · post a topic · subscribe · Google ·
Posted on 06/14/2024 2:43:22 AM PDT by Jonty30
Theory has become practice as new work from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering taps diamond defects’ remarkable ability to concentrate optical energy.
Researchers have developed atomic antennas using germanium vacancy centers in diamonds, achieving a million-fold optical energy enhancement. This advancement allows the study of fundamental physics and opens new research avenues. The collaboration between theoretical and experimental teams was essential to this breakthrough.
Atomic Antennas: Harnessing Light for Powerful Signals Similar to how a radio antenna captures a broadcast from the air and concentrates the energy into music, individual atoms can collect and concentrate the energy of light into a strong, localized signal that researchers can use to investigate the fundamental building blocks of matter.
The more powerful the intensity enhancement, the better the antenna. However, scientists have never been able to tap the potentially huge intensity enhancements of some “atomic antennas” in solid materials simply because they were solids.
Overcoming the Challenges of Solid Materials “Most of the time when you have atoms in solids, they interact with the environment. There’s a lot of disorder, they get shaken by phonons and face other disruptions that reduce the coherence of the signal,” said UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering Assistant Professor Alex High.
In a new paper published on June 7 in Nature Photonics, a multi-institutional team led by the High Lab has cracked this problem. They have used germanium vacancy centers in diamonds to create an optical energy enhancement of six orders of magnitude, a regime challenging to reach with conventional antenna structures.
Maybe telescopes someday, any sufficiently important science’s applications is not predictable, see Kroemer’s Nobel lecture on semiconductor heterostructures.
That said, it seems like the immediate application is improved research lab instrumentation to be used for molecular chemistry investigation of small samples, short distances, short times to pick apart biochemical reaction pathways for problematic / poorly understood / interesting reactions ( prions, membranes, …); they cite improvements on “single-molecule Raman and FRET spectroscopy” see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%B6rster_resonance_energy_transfer#:~:text=FRET%20can%20be%20used%20to,successful%20mixing%20of%20different%20membranes.
Electron microscopes. I forgot about those.
There's that name again. Sort of like "Byrd" in West Virginia.
Harnessing Light for Powerful Signals Similar to how a radio antenna captures a broadcast from the air and concentrates the energy into music.
/facepalm
now where has super-concentrated light been seen in action? Oh yeah...Star Trek, Flash Gordon, the Forbidden Planet...
There are a lot of possible application with this. Eyeglasses that a third the weight and very nearly unbreakable comes to my mind.
There it is.
Wonka already developed one.
“Harnessing Light for Powerful Signals Similar to how a radio antenna captures a broadcast from the air and concentrates the energy into music.”
Crazy, man! Here’s an article written by someone whose mind is a science desert. As usual, such articles start with a flashy picture.
From other articles, it captures the various wavelengths of light in greater concentration and creates a much more detailed picture of it.
To me, that means much more detailed pictures of astronomical phenomenon.
I was thinking possibly more efficient solar cells? <p<
Please bear in mind I know nothing about this.
Me neither, but I was thinking the same thing...
It may very well have solar power applications. It gathers light, so it could be useful.
Only music? What kind?
“... captures the various wavelengths of light in greater concentration and creates a much more detailed picture of it”
I still don’t get it.
If it creates a ‘more detailed picture’ then it must be like a screen that you can look at, perhaps through magnification because perhaps it’s very small.
Could it be just a light amplifier, amplifying the light that impinges on it.
“ Only music? What kind?”
Light music of course!
Telescopes collect data. They don’t take a picture anymore, because we reached the limit as to what we can do when it comes to seeing images for what they are, like you would with a cellphone.
The data it collects is then recompositioned in a computer to create the image that NASA releases for public composition. So, all the images that you see that NASA has released are recompositioned images.
What this technology allows is greater data collection on the bandwidths of ultraviolet to infrared and the visible light spectrum and everything in between. When the data collected are recompositioned in a computer, you will see pictures in much greater detail than is currently allowed with the limits of our technology.
It will allow us to see farther out and in greater detail than what we can currently.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.