Best Combination, The

ASEE Prism, Apr 2006 by Grose, Thomas K

NANOTECH

THE CREATION of tiny lasers-each smaller than a human hair-that could be used not only for telecommunications but also cancer and other disease detection is the goal of a newly funded, multidisciplinary initiative at England's University of Cambridge. The $4.13 million research project is a joint venture among Cambridge's engineering, physics and chemistry departments and is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The Cambridge group wants to design microscopic lasers based on liquid crystals and light-emitting polymers that have the best features of dye, gas and diode lasers but without each one's drawbacks. Dye lasers are tunable to different wavelengths but are large. So are gas lasers, and they can't be tuned; but they're powerful and stable. And diode lasers are small but also cannot be tuned. If they succeed, the minilasers will be stable, will emit very pure light and can be tuned to any wavelength, from ultraviolet to infrared, by an electronic signal. Such lasers could be used as "labs on a chip," able to combine spectroscopic measurement and analysis on a single chip. That will allow for instant, sophisticated analyses, rather than having to send samples to a lab. -TG