Hasta La Gadget!

We’re big proponents of the idea that everything is better with lasers, and a team of researchers at UC Berkeley has created a new type of semiconductor plasmon nanolaser, or spaser, that could eventually find a home in many of your favorite devices. The big breakthrough is that Berkeley’s spaser operates at room temperature — previous spasers could only sustain lasing at temperatures below -250° C — enabling its use in commercial products. Plasmon lasers work by amplifying surface plasmons, which can be confined to a much smaller area than the light particles amplified by conventional lasers. This allows for extreme miniaturization of optical devices for ultra-high-resolution imaging, high sensitivity biological sensors, and optical circuits 100 times faster than the electronic variety. There’s no word on how soon the technology will be commercially available, so you’ll have to wait a bit longer for your first laser computer.

World’s first room-temperature semiconductor plasmon nanolaser created by Berkeley scientists originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Jan 2011 01:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looking down at gauges? Officially passe. Check out Pioneer‘s vision of the future, a prototype that uses an embedded laser projector (a Microvision, as it were). They showed it a little earlier in Japan but this is the first time we’ve seen it in the US, and we got a chance to try it out. Right now it’s just running a static demo, but the idea is that a virtual concierge (represented by our favorite mascot pops up to give you information, and you could also get streaming video from traffic cameras, all without you having to look down. The information is supposed to come via a smartphone, we learned later an Android one at that, though things are a little vague. A release date is a little vague too, sometime in 2012, though we’re told the company is working with car companies. But could we get this by next year? We’ll see.

Continue reading Pioneer prototype laser-based heads-up display with Android hands-on (video)

Pioneer prototype laser-based heads-up display with Android hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 23:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The folks at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) have lovingly referred to their latest contribution to the world of science as the “poor man’s X-FEL.” An X-FEL, or X-ray Free-electron Laser, is like a super strong video microscope that converts electrons to X-rays to observe high-speed molecular movement. TU/e’s super laser alternative depends solely on a very specific bunching of electrons to do the same thing, allowing for a much smaller (it fits on a tabletop), much cheaper setup. With an estimated cost of half a million euro, the laser is hardly cheap, but it’s far more affordable than the competition: Stanford‘s X-FEL runs hundreds of millions of dollars, and measures a whole kilometer. TU/e researchers admit that their laser can’t do everything that an X-FEL can, but, hey, you get what you pay for. Up next for TU/e? In vitro pork products. Yummy.

Dutch scientists develop half million euro, ‘affordable’ super laser originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Dec 2010 13:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It may shock your senses, but this actually isn’t the first time we’ve heard of lasers being used to track birds and their habitats. But this go ’round, an Idaho University team is using a satellite-borne laser in an effort to “predict in which part of a State Forest the birds might be living.” In particular, the crew is developing methods that’ll help them track the North American pileated woodpecker, namely because these creatures are pegged as being great indicators of overall bird diversity. Currently, the laser is only capable of analyzing vital characteristics of a woodland, but scientists are using this information to take a stab as to where the aforementioned birds would be. Essentially, this laser spotting approach enables gurus to spot highly dense sections of forest — plots where the pileated woodpecker loves to hang — from above, dramatically cutting down the hide-and-seek that would previously take place on foot in much larger areas. Now, if only they could get lasers onto the birds, we’d have an all new brand of rave to consider.

Satellite-borne lasers tracking woodland happenings, who knows what else originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Dec 2010 06:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Solid-state lasers are fine, durable and reliable and all that, but what if you want something a little softer, maybe a little more conforming to your needs and moods? Or, what if you want something that can beam light in all directions at once? Then you need to go liquid, baby, liquid. That’s what Slovenian scientists (and diacritic wunderkinds) Matjaž Humar and Igor Muševič have done, creating, in their words, “3D microlasers from self-assembled cholesteric liquid-crystal microdroplets.” Various layers of fluids form what’s called a Bragg-onion optical microcavity, including embedded crystals not unlike those that flip the tiny switches in an LCD. These blobs are self-assembled chemically and, when a little laser is applied to them, can create a 3D image by shining their light in every dimension simultaneously. Well, not every one — you know the Fifth Dimension can only be seen if you let the sunshine in.

World’s first 3D microlaser created, has a gooey Bragg-onion center originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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