Just like those heroes in poor-quality movies and interstellar novels when they first think of weapons when they choose weapons, they are all laser pointer weapons. This kind of device generates coherent electromagnetic radiation beams by stimulating atoms or molecules to excite photons, but the speed of this technology improvement has been It’s a bit outdated.
Nowadays, laser has been used frequently in industry, and it is involved in the printing of documents in the home office and the playing of movies in the home theater. Not only that, it also appears in medical journals and military news, but the rest of the time it is basically only used in applications that are reduced to reading barcodes, which is really overkill.
But lasers are still very interesting. He is an associate professor of electronic and computer engineering. He pays special attention to the relatively unexplored areas of the electromagnetic spectrum, namely the terahertz (THz), or far infrared frequency. He is a researcher at the forefront of terahertz semiconductor quantum cascade laser technology. He and his colleagues have released high-temperature environments and other important performance characteristics, and their laser results have also become a new world record.
His research goal is to develop equipment to open up a variety of possible applications such as biology, chemical sensing, spectroscopy, explosives, as well as the diagnosis of prohibited materials, detection of diseases, quality control of drugs, and even remote sensing astronomy to understand stars. And the formation of galaxies, here are just a few examples. (These are pretty cool things and will leave a deep impression.)
However, in addition to the known advantages, terahertz lasers have been fully utilized and explored; however, high cost and functional limitations have hindered the application of innovation in various fields. He is expected to truly release the application potential of terahertz laser technology; he recently received a batch of funding from the National Science Foundation, with the goal of studying the phase-locked ultra-narrow beam array of high-power terahertz lasers, and creating terahertz lasers compared to the current ones. The equipment can generate greater light intensity and remove obstacles for large-scale research and commercial applications.
According to the description, the terahertz region of the electromagnetic spectrum has not been studied much due to the lack of high-power radiation sources. Existing radiation sources have low output power and some other undesirable spectral characteristics, which makes them seriously inappropriate in applications. His current project aims to develop a terahertz semiconductor green laser pointer with an average optical power of up to 100 milliwatts, which will be two orders of magnitude higher than the existing technology and has a narrow beam characteristic with a divergence angle significantly less than five degrees.
Research on quantum cascade lasers (QCL), these devices were originally invented for the emission of mid-infrared radiation. They have only recently begun to make an attempt at terahertz frequencies, and within this range, they have encountered some additional challenges. In this cutting-edge environment, the group is one of the few research groups in the world that has made progress in the field of these viable low-cost lasers.
The method of studying quantum cascade lasers will greatly improve the output power and beam quality. Portable electric refrigerators will provide the required cooling temperature for semiconductor laser chips; these will include phase-locked quantum cascade laser emitting arrays, a series of frequencies required for discrete terahertz applications.
In previous work, he and his research team showed that terahertz lasers (with an emission wavelength of about 100 microns) can focus the beam using a type of light emitted by distributed feedback. The light energy of the laser is confined in a cavity, sandwiched between two metal plates, with a distance of 10 microns. Using a box-shaped cavity of 100 microns by 1400 microns by 10 microns, the research team produced a terahertz laser with a beam divergence angle of 4 degrees by 4 degrees. This narrow divergence angle terahertz laser has not yet been developed. achieve.
At present, most companies that use mid-infrared lasers are interested in this powerful and affordable terahertz quantum cascade laser, and this technology itself will produce new solutions. Before developers can write a “heavyweight app” to make it a home product, we first need an iPhone,” he said. “Similarly, this technology we are working on will enable future researchers to never Way to change the world.