Are New Mars Rocks Shielding Secrets about Alien Life 4 Billion Years Ago?

Space

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Are New Mars Rocks Shielding Secrets about Alien Life 4 Billion Years Ago?

Rocks enriched with iron have been found formed in lake beds near an ancient lake site on the Red Planet. Research suggests these rocks may indicate signs of life having once existed there.

The study is another leap forward in searching for microbes on Mars that will help prove whether life did or did not exist there all those several billion years ago. Those rocks most likely to contain fossils are of the sedimentary sort. These densely packed mud or clay rocks are high in iron and silica which are both helpful in the preservation of fossils.

The period in which these Mars rocks are thought to have formed is between the Noachian and Hesperian Periods of Martian history around three or four billion years ago. During this period the planet was thought to be in abundance of water and would have been ideal for supporting life. Fossils that are preserved on Mars tend to be in much better condition than those preserved on Earth as they have no plate tectonics to deal with.

In assessing the fossils in replicated Martian conditions, the team is hoping to identify the most likely sites where alien life traces may be found. These findings could help NASA in their Mars mission by pointing them in the right direction. The agency’s next mission to the Red Planet is set for 2020 where rock samples will be gathered and brought back to Earth for further analysis. The European Space Agency also has a similar mission planned for the near future.

This most recent study of Mars rocks could help to identify the most promising sites in which to get rock samples and ultimately help in determining the landing sites for the upcoming missions. “There are many interesting rock and mineral outcrops on Mars where we would like to search for fossils, but since we can’t send rovers to all of them we have tried to prioritise the most promising deposits based on the best available information,” says Dr Sean McMahon, a Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellow in the University of Edinburgh’s School of Physics and Astronomy.

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Are Vitamins and Supplements Really as Good as We Think at Lowering the Risk of Heart Disease?

Research

Mike White

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Are Vitamins and Supplements Really as Good as We Think at Lowering the Risk of Heart Disease?

According to a review article published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the answer to that is no. Instead of focusing on vitamins and supplements, experts suggest we should be turning to plant-based foods in which to reduce our risk of heart disease.

Supplements have become increasingly popular over the past few years as a means of treating nutrient deficiencies. In 2012, according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, it was estimated that more than 50 percent of the US population were taking supplements of some kind. But despite this high number, there’s no substantial evidence to confirm if any of these supplements on their own or combined are effective at lowering the risk of heart disease.

During the study, researchers looked into the vitamin and supplement use in 179 different trials to see if any benefits were apparent. What they discovered was that out of the four most common supplements taken (multivitamins, calcium, vitamin C, and vitamin D), none of them showed any consistent benefit for the prevention of heart disease or stroke.

However, good results were found in folic acid and B-complex vitamins where folic acid was present. Both of these seemed to be effective at reducing the risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease.. However, it should be noted that niacin (vitamin B3) and antioxidants were found to be associated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality.

“Folic acid administration and the reduction of cardiovascular disease through stroke seen in the Chinese CSPPT (China Stroke Primary Prevention Trial) trial provides the only example of cardiovascular disease risk reduction by supplement use in the period following the Preventive Services Task Recommendation,” says lead author of the study, David J.A. Jenkins, MD, PhD, DSc. “Whether these data are sufficient to change clinical practice in areas of the world where folic acid food fortification is already in place is still a matter for discussion.”

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UCLA Scientists Report Their Deepest Understanding Yet of the Enzyme Telomerase

Research

Wendy Cunningham

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UCLA Scientists Report Their Deepest Understanding Yet of the Enzyme Telomerase

Telomerase is an enzyme that we once knew very little about, other than it’s linked to both cancer, certain aging-related diseases, and other illnesses. However, now, thanks to the advancement of technology, researchers can get a much clearer picture of the enzyme and how it works.

“At each step, we zoom in closer and see more and more details, and can now begin to deduce not just what the enzyme looks like, but also how it functions,” explains senior author of the study and professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UCLA, Juli Feigon. “Knowing that may lead to the development of new drugs that target specific parts of the enzyme.” As well as reporting how they can now see the enzyme in near-atomic resolution, the researchers also report how, for the first time ever, they’ve captured telomerase while making DNA.

Lukas Susac is the co-lead author of the study and a UCLA postdoctoral scholar in Feigon’s lab. “For the first time we have a framework, or blueprint, of telomerase,” he says. “We know people have telomerase mutations and get sick, but we have had no understanding of how this came to be, beyond knowing their telomerase doesn’t work. Now we can say the problem is with a specific site within telomerase and perhaps see why the enzyme sometimes does not work properly.”

Telomerase’s main role is to maintain those little structures found at the ends of human chromosomes, the telomeres. During times when telomerase is inactive, every time the cells split, the telomeres get shorter in length. Eventually, they become so short that the cells either stop dividing or simply die off. Cells that have abnormally active telomerase can constantly rebuild their protective chromosomal caps and prevent themselves from dying. The enzyme is particularly active in cancer cells and enables the disease to grow and spread.

To conduct the study, Feigon’s team used single-celled microorganisms commonly found in freshwater ponds called “Tetrahymena thermophila.” The researchers used these microorganisms as they’re the ones in which telomerase and telomeres were first found. Inside telomerase lies a class of proteins that consists of four major regions and many sub-regions.

During this research, the scientists discovered a large sub-region called “TRAP” that happened to be a part of the enzyme’s reverse transcriptase. These reverse transcriptases use RNA to make DNA. When it comes to telomerase’s reverse transcriptase, unlike other reverse transcriptases which can copy any RNA sequence to make DNA, these can only copy a specific six-nucleotide strand of RNA. It copies this strand over and over in which to make a long chain of DNA.

TRAP plays a vital role in adding small parts of DNA onto the ends of chromosomes in order to prevent them from shortening whenever a cell divides. And for the first time ever, researchers are able to report their findings in regards to its shape, structure, and regions in which it interacts. “A joy of science is the moment when you are the first person in the world to see something important,” says Feigon.

Back in 2015, the researchers reported their findings in another major region called ‘TEN’. Now, they’re able to report on the structures of both TEN and TRAP and how they communicate with telomerase RNA and each other. The next step for Feigon and his team is to learn how the different regions interact with one another. To try and slow down the production of cancer cells it would be useful to know how to target the activity that occurs within the enzyme.

“We have very deep insights into how telomerase works and how the components work together, says Susac. “Each of these interactions could be a point to a target, and possibly disrupt or enhance the function of telomerase. Precision will be very important; simply hitting telomerase with a hammer won’t work. Telomerase is a very central and unique enzyme in many organisms. Now we have locations to aim for.”

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The World’s Most Sensitive Experiment for Dark Matter is Now Underway

Space

Ryan Young

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The World’s Most Sensitive Experiment for Dark Matter is Now Underway

Dark matter has always been a bit of a mystery. But, thanks to the generosity of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the world’s most sensitive experiment for this mysterious phenomenon is about to begin. Experts say the sensitivity of this experiment will be at least 50 times that of its predecessor and will involve exploring weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) in a way that’s more in-depth than ever.

The experiment is named the SuperCDMS SNOLAB and its construction is being managed by the DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. “We’re excited to lead the project and work with our partners to build this next-generation dark matter experiment,” says JoAnne Hewett, head of SLACs Fundamental Physics Directorate and chief research officer. The whole collaboration consists of 111 individual members from 26 different institutions.

In the universe, it’s estimated that only 15 percent of all matter is visible. The remainder is what’s known as dark matter. Dark matter is thought to be the key driver of the evolution of the universe due to the gravitational pull it has on visible matter. The problem is that scientists are yet to unfold exactly what it’s made of.

One suggestion is that dark matter is made up of dark matter particles such as WIMPs. If that’s the case, researchers are hoping to capture the interactions these particles would have if they were to collide with an atom from our visible world. The way they will search for the interactions will be done using silicon and germanium crystals to measure the atomic jiggles.

But in order to do that, the crystals must first be cooled to under -459.6 degrees Fahrenheit. And it’s these ultracold conditions that gave rise to the name of the experiment: Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS). From the dark matter collision, additional atomic vibrations would amplify, giving a strong fingerprint for the experiment to measure using advanced superconducting electronics.

The Canadian laboratory SNOLAB is a large, underground facility that’s located inside a nickel mine near the city of Sudbury. It’s North America’s deepest underground lab and is where the experiment will be operated from. “SNOLAB is excited to welcome the SuperCDMS SNOLAB collaboration to the underground lab,” says Kerry Loken, SNOLAB’s project manager. “We look forward to a great partnership and to supporting this world-leading science.”

A detector prototype has been successfully tested at SLAC over the past few months, and together, alongside seven other collaborating institutions, SLAC will contribute to the experiment the centerpiece of four detector towers. The first of which could be sent to SNOLAB as early as the end of the year. “The detector towers are the most technologically challenging part of the experiment, pushing the frontiers of our understanding of low-temperature devices and superconducting readout,” states Bernard Sadoulet, a collaborator from the University of California, Berkeley.

Two other national labs are involved in the project alongside SLAC. They are the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL) and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). While FNAL works on the cryogenics involved in the experiment, PNNL is helping to understand background signals discovered during the experiment. Several U.S. and Canadian universities are also playing a part in the experiment, working on various tasks including data analysis and detector fabrication.

“We’re fortunate to have a close-knit network of strong collaboration partners, which is crucial for our success,” says KIPACs Blas Cabrera. “The same is true for the outstanding support we’re receiving from the funding agencies in the U.S. and Canada.”

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On the Hunt for Clandestine Nuclear Weapon Sites

Lars Wecks

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On the Hunt for Clandestine Nuclear Weapon Sites

One of the biggest threats to mankind today is that of nuclear weapons. It’s not so much the ones that we know about that are the problem, it’s all the others that remain undetected that pose the real threat.

At the moment, inspectors spend a lot of their time looking for signs of plutonium or highly enriched uranium production. Explosive devices can be made very quickly using either of these ingredients in the right quantity.

“The assembly work can be done in an office building, underground facility, or even a big kitchen. It’s nearly impossible to detect once the program reaches this point,” explains Scott Kemp, an associate professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT. Thankfully manufacturing these materials can leave quite obvious clues.

One of the main reasons as to why intelligence is able to detect some of these programs is because there are typically a lot of people involved. But, traditional intelligence is not always the most reliable of sources, especially when it comes to places such as North Korea where societies are very close.

According to Kemp, detecting the production of plutonium is much easier than detecting the production of enriched-uranium for many reasons. The first giveaway is the heat signature. “Nearly all plutonium production occurs in nuclear reactors, and they obviously produce a lot of heat,” he says. “There are clever things a country could do to hide the heat signature, but they are not simple. Infrared satellites can search for waste heat leaving buildings, or being pumped into rivers or oceans.”

Another clue is the detection of chemical signatures. Reactor fuel is often processed in order to extract plutonium, and while most of this is contained within the reactor, some do still leak out, particularly noble gases such as krypton and xenon. “But, a country could do all sorts of fancy things, like cryogenically freezing the off-gas, to eliminate the chemical signature if they wanted to,” says Kemp. “So, we may or may not find signs of plutonium production this way.”

Uranium also produces a chemical signature that’s very distinct, but the chance of a leak is much lower. However, when it does happen, the gas decomposes into hydrofluoric acid and a kind of dust-like aerosol. While the hydrofluoric acid is pretty useless in terms of detection, the dust-like aerosol is very unique and distinctive.

“There are many techniques for identifying molecules, but the sensitivity required in this case is exceedingly high, and the aerosol form presents a number of other challenges,” says Kemp. “If we could come up with extremely sensitive detectors that are cheap enough to put around a country without a lot of fancy equipment or maintenance, we would make significant inroads into the problem of detecting clandestine uranium-enrichment programs.”

A new special provision, called the Additional Protocol, has been introduced that will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to be able to investigate further tips regarding suspicious sites. It also gives the IAEA the power to deploy environmental sensors to help monitor the situation.

“But politics ultimately drives this in the end,” says Kemp. “If inspectors learned something, whether from intelligence or sensors, but were refused the additional access needed to follow up on the lead, then the international community would probably presume the worst. It would therefore still be in Iran’s interest to provide follow-up access even if they did not technically have to – that is unless they were really hiding something.”

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Without Teamwork, There will be No Colonizing on Mars

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Ryan Young

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Without Teamwork, There will be No Colonizing on Mars

According to a paper published in American Psychologist, it’s not just technology we need to get to grip with in order to survive on Mars. The psychological dynamic of being trapped in a confined space with the same small group of people for months on end is no easy feat. And without teamwork, it just wouldn’t work.

“Teamwork and collaboration are critical components of all space flights and will be even more important for astronauts during long-duration missions, such as to Mars. The astronauts will be months away from home, confined to a vehicle no larger than a mid-sized RV for two to three years and there will be an up to 45-minute lag on communications to and from Earth,” confirms lead author of the paper “Teamwork and Collaboration in Long-Duration Space Missions: Going to Extremes”, Lauren Blackwell Landon.

Phycological research on spaceflight is pretty limited when it comes to the teams. By applying psychology best practices, the authors were able to offer insights as to how NASA can put together the most solid team for long-duration missions. Astronauts that are open to new experiences, resilient, emotionally stable, and agreeable are those most likely to be chosen for these kinds of missions as are the most likely to succeed. A sense of humor is also a very good quality to have in these situations, to help lighten the mood during tense situations.

The 45-minute lag in communications with Earth will mean the crew will need to be quite self-sufficient as no immediate help will be available. Having defined goals, being able to communicate effectively, and build trust with one another are all things which will help in situations of potential conflict. “Successfully negotiating conflict, planning together as a team, making decisions as a team and practicing shared leadership should receive extensive attention long before a team launches on a space mission,” says Landon.

We can learn a lot about interdependence and teamwork from the U.S. military. Regular debriefs are held where teams come together to discuss recent events and learn from one another’s actions. They promote learning and performance across the whole military. Debriefs were first introduced in the U.S. military many decades ago. Since then debriefs have been adopted in various areas including the fire service, health care, education, and aviation industries.

Research has proven that a debrief can improve a team’s performance levels by as much as 25 percent. But, to be the most effective, debriefs must be held where people feel safe and free to speak honestly. Although more and more time is spent collaborating with others, many of us are still unsure as to how to get the most out of a team. Just because the individual team members are all highly skilled, doesn’t mean they’re going to work well as a team. Building a strong team takes time and practice. And as well as regular debriefs, teams should also participate in regular team building exercises too. That way they can determine where their strengths as a team lie and where improvements can be made.

Teamwork has become very popular in the academic setting as prior research has proved that, as a general rule of thumb, teams produce better work. As part of the study, the researchers studied data obtained from the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Doctorate Recipients, and the Survey of Earned Doctorates. In doing so, they discovered that those holding degrees in engineering, science, technology, or mathematics earned more money and worked longer hours when working within a team. However, they found no real difference in job satisfaction between those who worked in a team and those who worked alone.

At the end of the day, the saying “two heads are better than one” didn’t come out of nowhere. In almost any problem-solving situation, it’s great to have a team on board to help spread the load, but if that team are so individually different and unwilling to adapt to one another’s ways, that team will never get past the first hurdle. There’s no ‘I’ in the team, and there never will be.

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Engineers Develop A New Cloaking Material That Can Hide Hot Objects

Research

Wendy Cunningham

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Engineers Develop A New Cloaking Material That Can Hide Hot Objects

Thanks to the development of infrared cameras, drones can quite easily find what they’re looking for even in the darkest of conditions. And while that might be good for a predator seeking its prey, it’s not much use for someone trying to hide. However, the art of shielding from such detectors could be about to get a whole lot easier.

Hongrui Jiang is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who is behind the development of this super stealth sheet. Described just recently in the research journal Advanced Engineering Materials this new cloaking material can render people and objects pretty much invisible. While there are thermal blankets and heavy metal armor that does a similar thing, none are as effective or as lightweight as Jiang’s material.

At less than a millimeter thick, the stealth sheet can absorb around 94 percent of the infrared light it detects. Being able to trap this much light means that any warm objects situated underneath the stealth sheet suddenly become much harder to pick up with an infrared detector.

A newly developed stealth sheet can hide hot objects like human bodies or military vehicles from infrared cameras. CREDIT
PHOTO BY HONGRUI JIANG

One of the most important features of the stealth material is that it can absorb light that’s in both the mid and long-wavelength infrared range – the same light that’s emitted by anything equivalent to the human body’s temperature. Another very clever aspect of the stealth sheet is that it has electronic heating elements incorporated into it which creates a mask for tracking infrared cameras. “You can intentionally deceive an infrared detector by presenting a false heat signature,” explains Jiang. “It could conceal a tank by presenting what looks like a simple highway guardrail.”

In order to capture the infrared light, the team used a material commonly found in solar cells, called black silicon. Black silicon is made up of millions of microscopic needles called nanowires. When the light comes in it reflects back and forth between the nanowires, bouncing around, unable to escape. While scientists have known for a while that black silicon could absorb light, this is the first time anyone’s seen the potential for trapping infrared light within the material. So although they didn’t reinvent the whole process, they still opened it up to work with much taller nanowires.

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Follow These 9 Cybersecurity Leaders ASAP

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Amanda Porter

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Follow These 9 Cybersecurity Leaders ASAP

Cybersecurity is often described using “wild west” metaphors, and for good reason. It’s still a wild and untamed landscaped defined by uncertainty, instability, and endless evolution.

In order to understand the threats of today and tomorrow, it’s important to ask the professionals on the front lines of cybersecurity. They are at the vanguard of advanced protection, and they interpret the mentality of hackers better than anyone else. These thought leaders supply the ideas and insights that propel cybersecurity right now:

Brian Krebs – Krebs began his career reporting on cybersecurity for the Washington Post in 1995. After leaving the paper in 2009, he became one of the best-known cybersecurity bloggers online. His insights are based on careful investigative reporting of basically every major cyber incident since the rise of the internet.

Bruce Schneier – Schneier has written extensively about cybersecurity in books and academic articles. He has also testified before a number of government agencies and served on several committees. One of his books, Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World, is considered an essential primer on individual data collection.

Mikko Hypponen – Hypponen is a Finnish cybersecurity expert and founder of a research firm that works to debug viruses. He is recognizable from several high-profile TED talks as well as articles in Wired and the NY Times. Hypponen’s experience with the technical nature of threats is invaluable.

Eva Galperin – Galperin is the Director of Cybersecurity at the Electronic Freedom Foundation. Before that, she worked throughout Silicon Valley. Her work is unique for focusing on the impact of cybercrime on vulnerable populations. The intersection of cybersecurity and political science is a frequent subject of her work. This sets her apart from many other thought leaders.

Scott N. Schober – Schober heads up the wireless security firm Berkeley Varitronics Systems. He also speaks regularly on TV networks like ABC, CNN, and CNBC. Schober is able to translate complex cybersecurity topics into accessible layman’s terms better than many of his peers.

Alex Hutton – Hutton is a global leader in the field of risk modeling and analysis. He has worked significantly with Verizon and has a background in finance. As companies increasingly use risk modeling to adjust cyber policies and limit financial losses, expect Hutton’s insights to lead the way.

Kate Moussouris – Moussouris is the creator of the first bug bounty programs for the US government and Microsoft. These programs are now standard throughout the industry. Much of her work has focused on using hackers themselves to improve cybersecurity. She is rightfully called a pioneer and is one of the most opinionated security experts on social media.

Window Snyder – Snyder is the former CSO of Mozilla and currently works on security at companies like Airbnb and Spotify. She also co-authored a seminal text on threat modeling. Synder is the creator of the Microsoft BlueHat security conference, a fruitful annual gathering on thought leaders.

Eugene Kaspersky – Kaspersky is the CEO of Kaspersky Labs, one of the largest cybersecurity firms in the world. He writes and publishes extensively on the company’s blog and is active on social media as well. He was also an early developer of antivirus software, giving him a historical perspective that few others share.

Follow these nine leaders to up your cybersecurity knowledge!

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Researchers Gain Deeper Understanding into Quantum Technology Thanks to Superconducting Vortex

Science

Wendy Cunningham

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Researchers Gain Deeper Understanding into Quantum Technology Thanks to Superconducting Vortex

A new discovery has been made by a team of Russian researchers, alongside their French colleagues, that the quantum Abrikosov vortices of supercurrent can also exist within a non-superconducting metal if contact is made with a superconductor, proving the theory of induced quantum coherence. Results of the study were published in the journal Nature Communications.

Superconductors are materials that can conduct electricity without any resistance. They were first discovered more than 100 years ago and are now used widely across the world in various applications including particle accelerators, MRI scanners, advanced electric power transmission lines, and magnetic levitation trains. Quantum coherence occurs when two wave sources have a constant phase difference, the same waveform, and the same wave frequency. It is the key property of superconductors, hence why understanding it is so vital.

Using this quantum coherence, researchers can build nanodevices that act like artificial atoms that can be used as qubits. But in order for any quantum electronics to be developed, first, a mathematical equation must be developed to account for both the superconductors microscopic processes and that of the materials it comes into contact with.

This is a quantum vortex at the semiconductor-normal metal interface. CREDIT
Elena Khavina/MIPT Press Office and the researchers

While there a lot of things scientists are still trying to figure out when it comes to quantum physics and superconductors, one thing they do know is that when superconductors come into contact with a normal metal the electronic properties of both are altered. The normal metal inherits some of the superconductor’s properties, one of which is to support a dissipationless electric current. But, can it also support that of a quantum vortex? And if so, what would their characteristics be like and how would they behave? These are all things explored in the research paper.

“To solve a complex experimental problem, it first needs to be simplified. That is, you look for a simple model system to describe behavior that is more complex. The main result of our research is that we have revealed the precise behavior of an induced vortex of current in the normal metal,” says the lead author of the study Vasily Stolyarov, deputy head of the Laboratory of Topological Quantum Phenomena in Superconducting Systems at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

In order to do this, the team discovered the correct way to develop the model sample for the study. “It turned out, our theoretical model based on Usadel equations could precisely and self-consistently describe the processes at the interface between a superconductor and a normal metal,” added Stolyarov. “It accounts for the screening effects of the circulating currents, which means it is fit for practical applications.”

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MIT Researchers Create New Way of Enhancing Light and Matter Interactions

Research

Lars Wecks

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MIT Researchers Create New Way of Enhancing Light and Matter Interactions

Researchers have now discovered a new way to enhance the interactions between light and matter which may one day lead to much more efficient solar cells as well as fully tunable lasers and light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

The whole idea behind this new approach is to find a way of getting photons to match more closely to electrons. Normally these two particles have a weak link. Bringing them closer together will enable greater control over the way in which they interact.

Silicon is a very important substance when it comes to the manufacturing of most modern-day electronics. But when it comes to anything that involves light, such as solar cells and LEDs, silicon isn’t as well suited. Improving the way in which light interacts with substances such as silicon could be a huge leap forward towards the integration of photonics with electronic semiconductor chips.

While various people have looked into this problem, most have focused on the actual silicon. But “this approach is very different – we’re trying to change the light instead of changing the silicon,” explains Ido Kaminer, one of the authors of the study, and a professor of physics at Technion and former MIT postdoc. One way to do that is to slow down the light enough so that it lowers the momentum of the photons significantly in order to nearer to the electrons.

During the study, they used a thin-film material coated with a layer of graphene in which to slow light by a factor a thousand. The material changes the behavior of the photons in a way that allows them to be easily controlled. In doing this the researchers were able to increase the frequency of the emissions from 20 to 30 percent.

When a photon interacts with a pair of oppositely charged particles they produce what’s known as a quasiparticle. This particular quasiparticle is called a plasmon-polariton and is a kind of oscillation that occurs in exotic materials.

MIT NEWS — Researchers at MIT and Israel’s Technion used a thin-film material composed of layers of gallium-arsenide and indium-gallium-arsenide, overlaid with a layer of graphene, as shown in this diagram, to produce strong interactions between light and particles that could someday enable highly tunable lasers or LEDs.
Courtesy of the researchers

According to MIT graduate student and author on the study, Nicholas Rivera, this oscillation process effectively shrinks the wavelengths of light considerably to an almost atomic scale. Once the light has shrunk it can then be absorbed or emitted by the semiconductor. These properties can be controlled when using graphene-based material by simply varying the voltage that’s applied.

While it’s still early days for this kind of research, the researchers are hopeful that it could lead to a new wave of solar cells being developed that are capable of absorbing a much wider range of light wavelengths. This would make them far more efficient than they are now. The research could also pave the way for the introduction of tunable light-producing devices such as lasers and LEDs.

“The work is very general,” says one of the study’s authors Yaniv Kurman of Technion (the Israel Institute of Technology). “We could use several other semiconductor materials and some other light-matter polaritons. By closing the momentum gap, we could introduce silicon into this world of plasmon-based devices.”

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