Dr Juna Sathian has received a grant from the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to develop the new MASER (Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) device.
MASERs were first discovered in the 1950s, but further development has been hindered due to the cost and complexity of making them.
MASERs detect and amplify extremely weak electromagnetic signals without adding additional noise, and could have a variety of potential uses, including more sensitive magnetic resonance body scanners, quantum optical coherence tomography, advanced quantum computer components, portable atomic clocks, and better radio astronomy devices for deep space exploration.
Until recently, MASERs could only be produced in very cold conditions, a vacuum, and a high magnetic field, so they are only currently used in a few specialised applications.
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Over the last eight years, Dr Sathian and colleagues have worked to develop a MASER which can operate at room temperature by shining a laser light through organic para-terphenyl crystals doped with pentacene molecules and inorganic diamond crystals with nitrogen-vacancy defects. However, this method is expensive and difficult to replicate in everyday applications.
The EPSRC grant will now allow Dr Sathian to develop a new type of room-temperate MASER powered by LEDs.
“MASERs have so much potential and could be used in lots of different ways to improve our everyday lives – from improving satellite communications to airport security,” Dr Sathian said in a statement. “I’m delighted to be awarded this new investigator grant from the EPSRC as it will allow me to take my MASER research forward, with the aim of producing a MASER device which is cost-effective, safe and environmentally friendly.
Dr Sathian continued: “It will also firmly establish the UK, and Northumbria University in particular, as a real centre for research expertise in this area.”
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