No. 1 Story

Mobile operators get fixed price spectrum renewal in $3b Government windfall

The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.

read more

First phonon (sound) laser created at Max Planck Institute

Science - Energy



The Max Planck/CalTech team was “… able to demonstrate for the first time the effect of coherent phonon generation with a single magnesium ion cooled to a temperature of around 1 milli-Kelvin in an electromagnetic trap. The pump source to this process is blue-detuned laser radiation.”

And, “As the scientists report in Nature Physics (Advance Online Publication 16 August 09, DOI: 10.1038/ NPHYS1367) this device represents a mechanical analogue to an optical laser that allows to investigate the fundamental dynamics of a phonon laser."

"The device in its present form could possibly be used as a sensor for extremely weak forces. The extension of the system to an ion chain or a two-dimensional ion array could perhaps make the breakthrough to possible applications.”

Within the MPI press release, Dr. Maximilian Herrmann, also at the Max Planck Institute and one of the scientists in the development of the phonon laser (saser), states, "An important step in the realization of this kind of phonon laser was the insight that blue-detuned laser light does not merely heat an ion as it is widely believed, but instead, by appropriate choice of frequency and intensity, can stimulate coherent amplification of its motion."

The press release from the Max Planck Institute also states how further development of the saser is possible.

It states, "The device in its present form could possibly be used as a sensor for extremely weak forces. The extension of the system to an ion chain or a two-dimensional ion array could perhaps make the breakthrough to possible applications."

The August 31, 2009 CalTech press release is entitled “Scientists Create Phonon Laser.”

Loading comments ...



- sponsored feature -

The Death of Traditional BI: What’s Next?

How to Make Business Discovery Work for Your Business IP PABX BUYING GUIDE

Business Discovery takes its cues from consumer apps. Like Google, it encourages us- ers to hunt for and explore data without worrying about or even noticing the underly- ing technology. Their entire experience is working within an intuitive interface to get real-time, self-service results with only minimal training. ...more