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Life Detector...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on January 19, 2023 at 5:00am

An Orbitrap cell. Credit: Ricardo Arevalo

Topics: Astrobiology, Astronautics, Biology, Laser, NASA, Planetary Science, Space Exploration

As space missions delve deeper into the outer solar system, the need for more compact, resource-conserving, and accurate analytical tools have become increasingly critical—especially as the hunt for extraterrestrial life and habitable planets or moons continues.

A University of Maryland–led team developed a new instrument specifically tailored to the needs of NASA space missions. Their mini laser-sourced analyzer is significantly smaller and more resource efficient than its predecessors—all without compromising the quality of its ability to analyze planetary material samples and potential biological activity onsite. The team's paper on this new device was published in the journal Nature Astronomy on January 16, 2023.

Weighing only about 17 pounds, the instrument is a physically scaled-down combination of two important tools for detecting signs of life and identifying compositions of materials: a pulsed ultraviolet laser that removes small amounts of material from a planetary sample and an Orbitrap analyzer that delivers high-resolution data about the chemistry of the examined materials.

"The Orbitrap was originally built for commercial use," explained Ricardo Arevalo, lead author of the paper and an associate professor of geology at UMD. "You can find them in the labs of pharmaceutical, medical and proteomic industries. The one in my own lab is just under 400 pounds, so they're quite large, and it took us eight years to make a prototype that could be used efficiently in space—significantly smaller and less resource-intensive but still capable of cutting-edge science."

The team's new gadget shrinks down the original Orbitrap while pairing it with laser desorption mass spectrometry (LDMS)—techniques that have yet to be applied in an extraterrestrial planetary environment. The new device boasts the same benefits as its larger predecessors but is streamlined for space exploration and onsite planetary material analysis, according to Arevalo.

Small laser device can help detect signs of life on other planets, University of Maryland, Phys.org.

Dr. Peter Delfyett, Jr...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 23, 2020 at 5:00am

Dr. Peter Delfyett, Jr., National Society of Black Physicists

Topics: Diversity, Diversity in Science, Laser, Physics, Semiconductors

Dr. Peter Delfyett, former NSBP President and NSBP fellow, is the 2020 winner of the William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award. The William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award was established to recognize an exceptional single scientific contribution which has had a significant impact in the field of lasers and electro-optics in the past ten years. Dr. Delfyett has been selected, "For pioneering contributions to semiconductor diode based ultrafast laser science and technology." The Award is endowed by Xerox Corp and Spectra Diode Labs. The Award consists of an honorarium of $2,500 and a medal. The presentation is made at the IEEE Photonics Conference.

Learn more about this award and its previous winners.

Peter Delfyett wins the 2020 William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award, NSBP

#P4TC links:

Diaspora, 13 February 2012

Reducing the Impact of Negative Stereotypes on the Careers of Minority and Women Scientists, November 25, 2010

Entanglement...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 23, 2019 at 5:16am

Physicists take first-ever photo of quantum entanglement.
Credit: University of Glasgow/CC by 4.0

Topics: Einstein, Entanglement, Laser, Quantum Mechanics

Scientists just captured the first-ever photo of the phenomenon dubbed "spooky action at a distance" by Albert Einstein. That phenomenon, called quantum entanglement, describes a situation where particles can remain connected such that the physical properties of one will affect the other, no matter the distance (even miles) between them.

Einstein hated the idea, since it violated classical descriptions of the world. So he proposed one way that entanglement could coexist with classical physics — if there existed an unknown, "hidden" variable that acted as a messenger between the pair of entangled particles, keeping their fates entwined. [18 Times Quantum Particles Blew Our Minds in 2018]

There was just one problem: There was no way to test whether Einstein's view — or the stranger alternative, in which particles "communicate" faster than the speed of light and particles have no objective state until they are observed — was true. Finally, in the 1960s, physicist Sir John Bell came up with a test that disproves the existence of these hidden variables — which would mean that the quantum world is extremely weird.

This is "the pivotal test of quantum entanglement," said senior author Miles Padgett, who holds the Kelvin Chair of Natural Philosophy and is a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Though people have been using quantum entanglement and Bell's inequalities in applications such as quantum computing and cryptography, "this is the first time anyone has used a camera to confirm [it]."

To take the photo, Padgett and his team first had to entangle photons, or light particles, using a tried-and-true method. They hit a crystal with an ultraviolet (UV) laser, and some of those photons from the laser broke apart into two photons. "Due to conservation of both energy and momentum, each resulting pair [of] photons are entangled," Padgett said.

'Spooky' Quantum Entanglement Finally Captured in Stunning Photo
Yasemin Saplakoglu, Live Science

Ionic Clock...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 10, 2019 at 5:00am

Physics World: A brief history of timekeeping

Topics: Atomic Physics, Laser, NIST, Quantum Mechanics, Research

By confining single ions of aluminum and magnesium in an electric trap, cooling them to near absolute zero and probing them with laser beams, physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colorado have built what is in effect the world’s most accurate clock. Having fractionally improved on the performance of another clock at NIST, the researchers have shown that their device would neither gain nor lose a second in 33 billion years (if it could run for that long). Such accurate timekeeping, they say, could boost geodesy and lead to new insights in fundamental physics.

The clocks that currently underpin atomic time rely on precisely measuring the frequency of microwaves emitted during a specific transition in cesium atoms. But such devices are limited by the relatively low frequency of that radiation. To keep time even more accurately, and eventually introduce a new definition of the second, physicists are developing clocks based on higher-frequency optical transitions.

The latest work at NIST features what is known as a quantum-logic clock. Built by Samuel Brewer and colleagues, it uses a positive ion of aluminum-27 as its timekeeper. When exposed to ultraviolet laser light at wavelength 267 nm, the ion undergoes a transition with a very narrow line width – making its frequency very well defined. What is more, that transition is largely immune to sources of external noise – such as blackbody radiation – that in other types of optical clock shift the frequency away from its true value.

A magnesium-25 ion is used to cool the aluminum down to the very low temperatures needed to minimize thermal noise. Cooling involves the absorption of photons at another specific frequency, but practical limitations mean that this cannot be done using the aluminum itself. This is because the required frequency in is too high for any practical laser. By entangling the two ions, the magnesium cools the aluminum via Coulomb interactions. This process also allows the quantum state of the aluminum ion to be read-out following exposure to the clock laser.

Entangled aluminum ion is world’s best timekeeper, Edwin Cartlidge, Physics World

laser (4)

Life Detector...

Dr. Peter Delfyett, Jr...

Entanglement...

Ionic Clock...

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