Lasers: Revolution in a ray of light

Lasers are one of the sexier corners of science thanks to Hollywood: Think Star Wars lightsabers, James Bond death rays, and blasters going “pew! pew!” But back in reality, they’re enabling the modern world, guiding [self-driving cars]( reading [barcodes]( directing [intercontinental missiles]( and creating perfectly distressed [denim jeans](. This year’s Nobel Prize in physics recognized two significant pieces of work on lasers—one of great delicacy and one of intense power. Arthur Ashkin, a former employee of Bell Labs, got the prize for developing “optical tweezers and their application to biological systems.” And Gérard Mourou of École Polytechnique in France and Donna Strickland of the University of Waterloo in Canada were recognized for “generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses.” Ashkin’s work has allowed scientists to grab onto living cells, while Mourou and Strickland’s research has amped up small lasers so that they can replicate the conditions of the Big Bang. Let’s shine a light on these remarkable achievements. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Sponsored by [Quartz Obsession] Lasers October 04, 2018 On an ultralight beam --------------------------------------------------------------- Lasers are one of the sexier corners of science thanks to Hollywood: Think Star Wars lightsabers, James Bond death rays, and blasters going “pew! pew!” But back in reality, they’re enabling the modern world, guiding [self-driving cars]( reading [barcodes]( directing [intercontinental missiles]( and creating perfectly distressed [denim jeans](. This year’s Nobel Prize in physics recognized two significant pieces of work on lasers—one of great delicacy and one of intense power. Arthur Ashkin, a former employee of Bell Labs, got the prize for developing “optical tweezers and their application to biological systems.” And Gérard Mourou of École Polytechnique in France and Donna Strickland of the University of Waterloo in Canada were recognized for “generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses.” Ashkin’s work has allowed scientists to grab onto living cells, while Mourou and Strickland’s research has amped up small lasers so that they can replicate the conditions of the Big Bang. Let’s shine a light on these remarkable achievements. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Reuters/Paulo Whitaker By the digits [192:]( Beams inside the world’s biggest laser facility, California’s National Ignition Facility [100 petawatts:]( Strength of the laser a Chinese research team is aiming to construct by 2023 [4:]( prizes in physics previously awarded for fundamental work in lasers (in 1964, 1981, 1997, and 2005) [1:20:]( of women to men among Nobel Prize winners since the academy was founded in 1901 [5]( Month span between Wikipedia’s rejection of a biographical entry on Donna Strickland and her becoming the only living female Nobel physics laureate [17%:]( Proportion of the current biographical entries on Wikipedia that are about women [2.24 × 10^32 Joules:]( it would take the Death Star to blow up Alderaan with its laser—equivalent to the energy produced by the Sun for a week The basics --------------------------------------------------------------- Lasers: [how do they work?]( 🤔 The short version is that they release monochromatic light (of a single wavelength) in a concentrated, organized beam. A laser consists of a [“gain medium”]( that amplifies light—and something to provide optical feedback, often a pair of mirrors, which serve to amplify the light as it bounces back and forth. Sponsored by Bradley Tusk’s The Fixer Sometimes, startups have to break the rules --------------------------------------------------------------- Described as “Silicon Valley’s favorite fixer”, Bradley Tusk is a venture capitalist who protects tech companies like Uber, Bird, and FanDuel from political risk. His new book, The Fixer, details his work helping some of the world’s most successful startups navigate the world of politics.[Learn how to avoid death by politics]( Fun fact! Despite the catchy acronym (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), a laser that produces light by itself is technically an oscillator, not amplifier. So it has been “[humorously noted]( that the acronym LOSER, for ‘light oscillation by stimulated emission of radiation,’” is a better technical description. Explain it like I'm 5! The tractor beam, IRL --------------------------------------------------------------- Arthur Ashkin began playing with lasers soon after they were invented in the 1960s. Put simply, lasers are focused beams of light particles called photons. Ashkin understood that, if he were to put enough of these photons together, it would be possible to create “radiative” pressure on objects. More importantly, Ashkin understood that a laser has more photons in the middle of a beam than at the edges. The difference created a natural gradient, which could be exploited to hold objects in place. That became what we know today as “optical tweezers.” [colorcorrected (20)]The red laser is applying a force on the white particle, which pushes it out in a highly defined trajectory.(Nobel Prize Foundation) Ashkin went on to use optical tweezers to hold bacteria. Then, with even more precise lasers, he began to study the insides of microbes without destroying them. Others followed up on his work by using lasers to tweak the molecular machines inside living cells. In other words, Ashkin had created a real-life version of science fiction’s [tractor beam](. pop quiz When was the “tractor beam” concept first mentioned? In Phish’s "Hoist"In a 1931 sci-fi novel In a Jules Verne essayIn the Star Trek writers room Correct. Author E. E. Smith described it in his book "Spacehounds of IPC." Incorrect. In the Star Trek writers room If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. Very recent history The Nobel casts a big shadow on the scientific community, so let’s shine some light on fascinating laser research that hasn’t yet been recognized by Stockholm. [2015:]( Scientists turn fat cells into lasers. [2015:]( Scientists use a laser to cool water with a quirk of physics. [2015:]( Scottish researchers use lasers to see around corners. [2015:]( Apple patents a transparent laser TV, but the picture isn’t good enough, and it uses an “enormous” amount of power. [2016:]( Scientists shoot a laser at anti-matter to figure out why the universe exists. Reuters/Peter Power Big question Strickland is the first woman in 55 years and the only the third woman to win a Nobel Prize in physics. Since the prize was founded in 1901, women have won 49 out of 923 prizes. [Why so few]( keep explaining! Short but sweet --------------------------------------------------------------- Donna Strickland, then at the University of Rochester, was once a PhD in Gérard Mourou’s lab. Together, their goal was to create very powerful but short-lived lasers. Until the 1980s, such attempts inevitably broke the instruments used for amplification because of the amount of power needed. Strickland and Mourou found that stretching a laser out reduced its peak power, which could then be greatly amplified using normal instruments. It could then be compressed to create the short-lived, highly powerful lasers they were after. The technique, which was described in Strickland’s first scientific publication, came to be known as chirped pulse amplification (CPA). The tools Strickland and Mourou created have made it possible to study natural phenomena in unprecedented ways. CPA can be used to create a laser pulse that only lasts one attosecond—one-billionth of a billionth of a second. At those timescales, it became possible to not just study chemical reactions, but also study what happens inside individual atoms. [colorcorrected (21)] The lasers can also be used to make highly precise cuts into materials like semiconductor chips; to store data in solid-state hard drives; and to manufacture custom-made medical stents to widen and reinforce blood vessels. Watch this! Levi’s goes to great lengths to give their jeans an aged, vintage look. Their newest method creates “broken-in” jeans in about 90 seconds. Using lasers. Giphy Million-dollar question Why are small lasers such a big deal? --------------------------------------------------------------- Mourou and Strickland’s research has been critical to building ever more powerful lasers, which nonetheless are small enough to fit on an ordinary table and cost mere millions of dollars. (Remember, power = energy / time, so a trivial amount of energy, like that emitted by a lightbulb, can be used to create incomprehensible amounts of power in an incomprehensibly short timeframe.) The Shanghai Superintense Ultrafast Laser Facility (SULF) generated 5.3 petawatts with a Frisbee-sized piece of sapphire, and they’re aiming for 10 petawatts by the end of the year. Here are explorations of how petawatt lasers could [recreate the Big Bang]( [how 100 petawatt lasers could be next]( and whether they would be sufficient to [“rip apart empty space.”]( If you’re interested in something a bit more down-to-earth, learn why an LED-lighting pioneer thinks that [lasers are the future of residential lighting]( (they’re already used in the headlights of the BMW i8), or how Facebook might [deliver the internet]( by laser. This one weird trick! Of mice and memories --------------------------------------------------------------- In 2014, MIT scientists [used lasers to manipulate the memories of mice](. First, they shocked male mice and labeled the neurons that encoded the memory of the shock. Then they used lasers to trigger those neurons when the mice crossed into a certain part of the cage, causing the mice to avoid it. Then they put the mice in a part of the cage with female mice and triggered the neurons again—which encoded the experience as pleasurable. When they were isolated and triggered a final time, they went to the areas they now associated with female mice. Giphy poll How cool are lasers? [Click here to vote]( So coolActually kinda scary?Scary cool 💬let's talk! In yesterday’s poll about [robo-farmers]( 71% of you said “keep your hands off my veggies!” 📧 Jake wrote: “Last year I was in Rome to celebrate a birthday. When I returned home (to Vancouver, Canada) everyone asked how my trip was. You know what the first thing I said was? “I HAD THE MOST INCREDIBLE TOMATO!” a confused look would wash over their face. It was my first Italian tomato and I couldn’t get over how rich and beautiful the flavour was. 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