For the first time in the world, researchers have shown the transfer of energy from an intermediary used to create laser light, to free electrons - without creating light. The method developed at the Technion allows electrons to be accelerated to conditions that may be used in a very wide range of possibilities, from medicine to the study of the fundamental properties of the universe.
The new method is called "phaser" which is an abbreviation (in English) of particle acceleration through forced emission of radiation. The experimental proof of the method will be reported the day after tomorrow in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters. The method was envisioned for the first time in the world theoretically in 1995 by Professor Levi Schechter from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion. With the support of the National Science Foundation, the system was designed and built in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion by Professor Shechter and Dr. Valeri Berezovsky.
Professor Schechter explains: "In principle, the system is based on the passage of an electron beam through a cell containing carbon dioxide molecules and allows millions of scatterings between the electrons and the gas molecules. Under normal conditions, electrons would transfer some of the energy to the gas molecules where some of that could be turned into light.
In the case of the system acting as a laser, the electrons transfer energy to molecules and these emit light particles called photons. These also force other molecules to emit additional photons and this is how radiation is created which is well known for having a single color."
With the support of the National Science Foundation and the Rothschild Foundation, it was possible for Dr. Samer Bana to leave the Technion for post-doctoral training, during which he performed the experiment at the National Laboratory in Brookhaven, New York, USA. As planned in advance by Professor Schechter, during the "Pfizer" experiment the laboratory accelerator was used and Dr. Bana proved beyond any doubt that it is possible to transfer energy from the molecules to the electrons in an organized manner and accelerate them.
Dr. Bana points out that possible future uses of the "phaser" will be mainly in the field of physics of accelerators in a reliable and compact way. For example, based on the "Pfizer" it will probably be possible to produce X-rays with qualities that do not exist today and these may be particularly useful in medicine or nano-science. At the same time, Dr. Bana points out that the acceleration method called "Pfizer" is within a few years of widespread implementation.
In the near future, the group aims to increase the utilization of acceleration in order to bring the application of the method closer to future devices.
Intel and the University of California have developed the world's first hybrid silicon laser
The collaboration yielded a single chip that emits and guides light, with potential for use in future computers and data centers ● A group from the Intel factory in Jerusalem is involved in the development
Researchers from the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Intel have created the world's first electrically powered hybrid silicon laser. The chip will be made of silicon in a normal process. This technology removes one of the last difficult obstacles to the production of silicon-based high-bandwidth optical devices for use in and around the computers and data centers of the future. A group from the Intel plant in Jerusalem is also involved in the development
The researchers developed a method to combine the light emission properties of indium phosphide with the light routing capabilities of silicon on one chip. When an electrical voltage is applied to the chip, the light produced by the indium phosphide-based layer enters the silicon waveguide, where it is contained and controlled, creating a hybrid silicon laser.
"The close collaboration between UCSB and Intel has yielded this important development," said Mario Fenicia, director of Intel's Photonics Technology Laboratory. "Although we are still far from a commercial product, we believe that it will be possible to integrate tens or even hundreds of hybrid silicon lasers with other silicon photonic components on a single silicon chip. This achievement will enable the creation of optical 'data pipes' that transmit terabytes in the computers of the future, and will enable a wave of new applications for extremely fast computing."
https://www.hayadan.org.il/BuildaGate4/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~~~593825422~~~179&SiteName=hayadan
