Biological Lasers Are Here, When Can I Install Them In My Eyes? An Interview ...
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Malte Gather and Seok Hyun Yun are a pair of absurdly smart scientists from the Wellman Center for Photomedicine in Boston, and they recently published research showing how they created the world’s first biological lasers made from single cells. Their work was picked up all over the Internet , and now they’ve effectively become rock stars of the light sciences world.
How did they bring this sci-fi fantasy to fruition? By inserting genes for the expression of green fluorescent protein from bioluminescent jellyfish into human embryonic kidney cells, which are then sandwiched in a pair of tiny mirrors and bathed in a blue light, naturally. This light triggers the cells to flash a green fluorescent pulse, which is shaped by the mirrors into a laser beam. It’s absolutely brilliant, and has an enormous amount of potential in applied medicine.
I called Gather to chat about the future of biological lasers, the silly controversy over his research, and whether he just unlocked the key to creating a zombie army with laser eyes.
This is crazy stuff. What are the applications? Everyone is asking this. Honestly, when we started this, it was more for scientific curiosity. We didn’t start with an application in mind. It was more to see if we can build lasers that are completely in the biological realm because we knew that lasers don’t appear in nature per se, so we wanted to gather an idea of the fundamentals for that.
Of course, as the project progressed and it seemed it would be quite successful we started to think about applications and I think I can mention maybe two or three that we are currently interested in but that might not definitely be what it is used for in the end because other people are starting to think about this as well.
What are you able to mention?
Nanosecond Pulse Techniques - News
Whats's interesting is the laser pulse is relatively high intensity, so it's easy to measure, and the laser pulse is inherently very short so you get a nanosecond pulse. For that reason you can look at many cells in a short period of time.
Purdue researchers have developed a new method of imaging the 3D structure of plaques within arteries using a nanosecond pulsed near-infrared laser. Currently tested in a laboratory environment,
The new technique uses nanosecond laser pulses in the near-infrared range of the spectrum. The laser generates molecular "overtone" vibrations, or wavelengths that are not absorbed by the blood. The pulsed laser causes tissue to heat and expand locally
Over his career in experimental plasma physics and pulsed-power technology, he developed a variety of state-of-the-art fast imaging devices. Contributions include pioneering work on holographic infrared interferometry, nanosecond electro-optical
The pulse-to-gap sensitivity in the bat is even shorter: they can detect delays of around 10 to 12 nanoseconds. That gap is so short that it's actually quicker than the action potential of neurons, prompting one neuroethologist, as Stoffregen and
Laser Rangefinder – Laser Distance Sensor
Laser Rangefinder is a device which uses a laser beam to determine the distance to an object. The most common form of laser rangefinder operates on the time of flight principle by sending a laser pulse in a narrow beam towards the object and measuring the time taken by the pulse to be reflected off the target and returned to the sender. Due to the high speed of light, this technique is not appropriate for high precision sub-millimeter measurements, where triangulation and other techniques are often used.
Laser pulse may be coded to reduce the chance that the rangefinder can be jammed. It is possible to use Doppler effect techniques to judge whether the object is moving towards or away from the rangefinder, and if so how fast. The precision of the instrument is determined by the rise or fall time of the laser pulse and the speed of the receiver. One that uses very sharp laser pulses and has a very fast detector can range an object to within a few millimeters.
Laser Distance Measurement Technologies Time of Flight Laser Measurement – this measures the time taken for a light pulse to travel to the target and back. With the speed of light known, and an accurate measurement of the time taken, the distance can be calculated. Many pulses are fired sequentially and the average response is most commonly used. This technique requires very accurate sub-nanosecond timing circuitry. Multiple Frequency Phase-Shift Laser Measurement – this measures the phase shift of multiple frequencies on reflection then solves some simultaneous equations to give a final measure. Interferometry Laser Measurement – the most accurate and most useful technique for measuring changes in distance rather than absolute distances. Laser Rangefinder Applications Military Laser Rangefinders provide an exact distance to targets located beyond the distance of point-blank shooting to snipers and artillery. They can also be used for military reconciliation and engineering. 3D Laser Rangefinders are used extensively in 3-D object recognition, 3-D object modelling, and a wide variety of computer vision-related fields. This technology constitutes the heart of the so-called time-of-flight 3D scanners. Forest Laser Rangefinder – Anti-Leaf Filter Laser Rangefinders are used in forestry. These devices have anti-leaf filters and work with reflectors.Nanosecond Pulse Techniques - Bookshelf
Nanosecond pulse techniques
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