frickin’ LASER BEAMS
April 25th, 2008 by Ψ*ΨConfession: I am attracted to shiny graphical abstracts. Even if your research has nothing to do with my interests, even if I’ve never heard of your group, you have my immediate and undivided attention if you include some pretty pictures. Bright colors and glowing things will usually persuade me to at least flip through your paper, and if you’re (un?)lucky, I might like it enough to post it. Behold:
Shiny, yes? Better yet, they’re single crystalline nanowires (2,4,5-triphenylimidazole, in case you were wondering). Some of you may be scratching your heads: “That doesn’t look like a laser…” But what’s at the heart of laserdom is stimulated emission.[1] I don’t really want to go into more detail on how they work.[2] But the extremely short version is that you have a gain medium (in this case, the nanowires) that gets pumped (optically, in this case). The pumping leads to population inversion, which is what makes stimulated emission possible. These guys found that the dimensions of the nanowires influenced the lasery behaviour. Cool paper, yes? I thought so.
And here’s one that’s arguably even cooler, but without an awesome graphical abstract…the authors used a laser to photopolymerise some resin with a little (yay, organic!) dye. This created a Fabry-Perot cavity with a waveguide inside. They make it sound very quick-and-easy and propose that it could be useful in the development of integrated optical circuits. Now, this isn’t my field, so I don’t actually know all that much about it…but that sounds pretty badass.
Since this post is on lasers, I’m totally obligated to post the following video.
[1] For some reason, that phrase always sounds so dirty to me.
[2] Bear with me, OK? I’ve never actually had the chance to play with lasers in the lab (damnit! but Sam is around to correct me where I’m wrong). But I took a spectroscopy class that …I’m just too sick to get up and search for the ginormous binder right now. Besides which, discussing Einstein coefficients involves scary math, and this is (presumably) an organic chemistry blog. We count to four and draw hexagons.[3]
[3] Well, ALL organic chemists do that…but seriously, not all of us are afraid of physics.
hehe You said “pumping” and then “stimulated emission”
That was awesome. he he hehe he
That purple laser picture reminds me of the scene from Star Wars where Luke is piloting his X-wing through the first Death Star, attempting to target his proton torpedoes. If only those damn lines would align!
Mmmm. Lasers….
i concur.
Q: Why shouldn’t a laser chemist not work at night?
A: Because then he would be accused of experimenting with simulated nocturnal emissions.
I mean stimulated of course
Craig Hawker gave a talk last week and had one of those expensive blue laser pointers. It was overrated (the pointer, not the talk- the talk was fantastic). The cheaper green ones are easier to see.
Well, our eyes ARE a lot more sensitive to green light than anything else…
yeah. also, i’ve noticed that my cat doesn’t like playing with my green laser pointer, and goes nuts for the red one. I’m guessing cats can see red better than green. Does anyone know?
Maybe Bucky is just finicky. Stanley can definitely see green–he is particularly adept at killing houseplants. Green = CHOMP
My cat? Acting like a diva? never.
i want a MASER pointer.
you would, wouldn’t you?
and this is (presumably) an organic chemistry blog
you’re welcome.
moar MATHS! moar!!!!
I agree, Maths are teh sexxy!!!
See?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7362799.stm
Every mathematician I know is either really cool, batshit crazy, or both.
John Hurt is an odd one to be saying much about sexy, though I agree that math rocks. Yes. It rocks.
Speaking of which, if any of you pchem wonks find yourself needing to learn or re-learn complex analysis, Tristan Needham’s book Visual Complex Analysis is hands down the most cool and interesting math book I’ve ever read.
Thanks for linking
I’m half-brain-dead and I have a question. Is there a Fourier UV-Vis spectroscopy?
Q: I have a question to Radio Yerevan – Can a man get pregnant?
A: The science does know the definitive answer to your question but experiments are in full swing
Yes, I think…or at least Google tells me so.
tx!
Sorry – no sharks. You fail.
P.S. – my cats seem to have no problem with green – they get possessive about the cat grass and the first one used to chomp on our (artificial) Christmas tree. Apparently they can find green just fine.
Will a color-blind person see a laser pointer dot as a bright spot or a dark one?
Color blind people do not have the same color reception, so the dot’s appearance would be in contrast to the background. For red-green, if you have a green background, the red dot might be a different shade of gray, probably darker gray on light gray.
There are many, many types of color-blindness, going all the way to full blown monochromatic vision – like watching a black-and-white TV. The full Ishihara test pictures (a set of pictures in various combinations of colors where the colors form patterns that determine color blindness. In some, you see a pattern if your eyes are normal, some you see one if you have that color blindness.). There is the most common red-green one most people think of, but there’s also yellow-blue, purple-orange, and even light blue-blue versions.
Fetz the chemist
Laser pointer is a little bit dangerous.