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Putting Photons to Work
ScienceNOW Daily News ^ | 15 May 2009 | Phil Berardelli

Posted on 05/18/2009 1:13:20 AM PDT by neverdem

Enlarge ImagePicture of zipper cavity

Nano vibrator. A tiny device called a zipper cavity can convert laser light into mechanical energy.

Credit: Matt Eichenfield and Jasper Chan, Nature

Researchers have built a nanoscale device that vibrates when struck by incoming laser light. The contraption, which is sensitive to the energy of a single photon, could speed the development of new optical communications systems. It could also help scientists probe some of the fundamental properties of matter with greater precision.

Light beams might not seem capable of performing mechanical work (photons, the carriers of light waves, have no mass), but at the atomic level they can accomplish a surprising amount. For instance, scientists have used laser light to trap, hold, and manipulate individual atoms. The question has been whether the same principle works at the nano scale, at which components are much larger than atoms but still only billionths of a meter in size.

That's what a team from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena set out to answer. First, the researchers fabricated a pair of planks only a few hundred nanometers wide out of silicon microchip material. Then they chemically etched a series of holes in each of them. The team calls the device a "zipper cavity," because of its resemblance to a zipper (see image). As the researchers report this week in Nature, the holes channel and capture a laser beam's energy and the device vibrates. The frequency of the vibrations depends on the intensity of the laser light bombarding it, says physicist and co-author Oskar Painter of Caltech.

The device behaves like an audio speaker, whose membrane vibrates depending on the intensity of an incoming electronic signal delivered by an amplifier. Conversely, like a microphone, the zipper cavity can modify the light's intensity via its vibrations. Together, the effects enable the zipper cavity to act as a tiny radio transmitter or receiver controlled entirely by light, says Painter, but with much greater range than a similarly sized electronic device.

Physicist Tobias Kippenberg of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, says that scientists could use such nanoscale devices to explore the behavior of matter at the quantum scale, at which electronic devices are unusable. Painter explains that because the device's vibrations occur on the order of 10 million to 150 million cycles per second, it could greatly improve the resolving power of atomic-force microscopes. Those devices, which are used to examine molecules and atoms, operate at only thousands of cycles per second. "The prospects are exciting for both fundamental research and new applications," Kippenberg says.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events; Technical; Testing
KEYWORDS: photons; physics; science; work

1 posted on 05/18/2009 1:13:20 AM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem

This would more realistically be useful in developing / improving imaging sensors, than be made into highly efficient solar cells.


2 posted on 05/18/2009 1:24:37 AM PDT by MyTwoCopperCoins (I don't have a license to kill; I have a learner's permit.)
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To: neverdem

ping


3 posted on 05/18/2009 1:55:22 AM PDT by Bellflower (The end of this age is near but the beginning of the next glorious one is coming!)
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To: neverdem

But, creating the laser light USED energy...


4 posted on 05/18/2009 6:42:59 AM PDT by JimRed ("Hey, hey, Teddy K., how many girls did you drown today?" TERM LIMITS, NOW AND FOREVER!)
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To: neverdem
The research paper: Optical and mechanical design of a “zipper” photonic crystal optomechanical cavity
5 posted on 05/18/2009 6:49:04 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money -- Thatcher)
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To: JimRed
But, creating the laser light USED energy...

Your CD and DVD player operates by very precisely shining a laser on the DVD's tracks and detecting the reflection of laser energy from the disk. Your fiber-optic telephone/TV/Internet service needs the ability to detect laser light after it has come through a long distance of fiber optic cable. You start getting the picture? A better way to detect/capture laser energy has huge implications.

6 posted on 05/18/2009 7:07:44 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money -- Thatcher)
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To: PapaBear3625

According to the paper, DARPA funded the research.


7 posted on 05/18/2009 7:21:54 AM PDT by Only1choice____Freedom (FDR had the New Deal. President 0bama has the Raw Deal.)
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To: Only1choice____Freedom
Considering the military applications of lasers, including communications, LADAR, and laser guidance of missiles and bombs, you can be sure that DARPA has a deep interest in laser technology.
8 posted on 05/18/2009 7:43:07 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money -- Thatcher)
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To: neverdem
This is nothing new.

In the eighties, in the corporate research labs at the Foxboro Company, we were fabricating and optically (laser) exciting near-identical silicon microstructures. Even moreso, we were optically exciting piezoelectric quartz tuning forks -- which produced electrical power from optical energy.

It's amazing how many times the wheel is re-invented...

9 posted on 05/18/2009 8:46:07 AM PDT by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias...!!)
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To: TXnMA
It's amazing how many times the wheel is re-invented...

Based on my experience working with engineers: "It's beneath me to use some other moron's inferior wheel. Clearly, the wheel I create will be far better!"

10 posted on 05/18/2009 8:51:30 AM PDT by TChris (There is no freedom without the possibility of failure.)
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To: El Gato; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Robert A. Cook, PE; lepton; LadyDoc; jb6; tiamat; PGalt; Dianna; ...
MicroRNA a major pluripotency repressor

Detecting diabetes with spit

Early Lessons From Mexico's Swine Flu Outbreak

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

11 posted on 05/18/2009 8:52:49 AM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: PapaBear3625

Thanks for the link.


12 posted on 05/18/2009 9:00:34 AM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: ShadowAce; AdmSmith; Berosus; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; Fred Nerks; george76; justiceseeker93; ..

Thanks neverdem. This will help in the construction of the Terminators.


13 posted on 05/18/2009 10:05:34 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/____________________ Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: TChris
"LOL!!!" -- sez the physical chemist...
14 posted on 05/18/2009 10:36:16 AM PDT by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias...!!)
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To: neverdem; rdb3; Calvinist_Dark_Lord; GodGunsandGuts; CyberCowboy777; Salo; Bobsat; JosephW; ...

15 posted on 05/18/2009 11:32:05 AM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: neverdem

Photons have no mass, yet they can make something vibrate. Huh? Vibration is movement, inducing movement requires kinetic energy, there is no kinetic energy in a collision when there is no mass.

When it’s quantum it’s guaranteed to be confusing. Throw out everything you learned in high school and undergrad physics and start anew.


16 posted on 05/18/2009 12:18:27 PM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: neverdem

"Facinating"
17 posted on 05/18/2009 12:20:24 PM PDT by Rebelbase
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To: TXnMA; TChris
I just wish they'd stop re-inventing the square wheel...

Cheers!

18 posted on 05/18/2009 3:29:47 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: antiRepublicrat
Photons have no mass, yet they can make something vibrate. Huh? Vibration is movement, inducing movement requires kinetic energy, there is no kinetic energy in a collision when there is no mass.

Photons have no rest mass, but they have momentum and can knock particles around.

19 posted on 05/18/2009 4:34:26 PM PDT by PapaBear3625 (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money -- Thatcher)
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To: neverdem

“Nano vibrator”, “Zipper Cavity”

Sometimes the jokes just write themselves.


20 posted on 05/18/2009 7:56:06 PM PDT by Egon (The difference between Theory and Practice: In Theory, there is no difference.)
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