Move objects with light: a dream of science fiction come true
Move objects with light: a dream of science fiction come true
The Nobel Prize is not only delivered by the advances to understand a phenomenon, but by the development of tools that change the way of doing science.
This is the case of Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, and whose work has not only focused on better understanding the physics of the laser, but to revolutionize its use to visualize extremely small objects and opening new research areas, without counting the industrial and medical applications.
Jorge Peón Peralta, director of the Institute of Chemistry, and Rocío Jáuregui Renaud, of the Institute of Physics, both of the UNAM (Mexico), highlighted the work of these scientists.
For some time, Jáuregui recalled, it is known that the light also emits a slight pressure, and Ashkin, a specialist at Bell Laboratories, in Holmdel, United States, used this principle to make an old science fiction dream come true: move objects with light .
For this, he managed to get the laser light to push small particles towards the center of the beam and keep them there; depending on the "push", the behavior of the particles (atoms, viruses and living cells) varies, allowing scientists to use it to hold or move microscopic objects. This is how he created what is now known as "optical tweezers", and the reason why he was awarded the Nobel Prize.
The UNAM has taken advantage of the technique of scattered pulse amplification or CPA, in the Laser Spectroscopy Laboratory, to follow up on chemical reactions that occur at extremely short time scales. (Photo UNAM)
Ashkin theorized, experimented and showed the relevance of optical tweezers for the control of biological objects, a new area of study, said the university student.
Meanwhile, Peón Peralta emphasized that Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland opened the way to the shortest and most intense laser pulses ever created by humanity, a revolutionary work that was published in 1985. By their method, they shared with Ashkin the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Its work has to do with the amplification of extremely short laser pulses (of just one femtosecond, or one billionth of a second) to increase its energy. With an ingenious approach, they managed to generate and amplify them to give rise to new tools that follow atomic or molecular processes in real time.
"The central idea was to expand the points of light using various optical operations, so that the frequencies were handled separately, amplified and then reassembled. With these pulses it is possible to track the movement of an atom in real time; produce intensities so large that they can create X-rays in the form of pulses, manipulate atoms or follow the behavior of molecules by diffraction, "explained Peón Peralta.
This technique, detailed, receives the name of scattered pulse amplification or CPA (by the abbreviations in English of chirped pulse amplification), concept that is related to the way in which the birds generate their song, varying the frequency of the sound that they emit.
Since 2006, the UNAM has taken advantage of this research tool through the Laser Spectroscopy Laboratory to monitor reactions that occur at extremely short time scales, in addition to controlling some chemical reactions, the university student said.
Donna Strickland, from the University of Waterloo, Canada, is the third woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics. The first was Marie Curie (1903) and was followed by Maria Goeppert-Mayer (1963).
In this regard, Jáuregui Renaud, specialist in non-conventional beams in optically active media, said that "there is a tendency not to award the Nobel prize to women, although they have made very relevant contributions, but it is also true that they are more dedicated to areas such as medicine or ecology. For example, in the Institute of Physics 20 percent are women, and even then it is a high percentage for the international standard. "
The work of Strickland, Gérard Mourou and Ashkin marked a before and after in the use of light beams as a tool for research and industry, he concluded. (Source: UNAM / DICYT)
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