Oxborrow's device could simplify and improve masers, says Hilsum. In the long term it could find a use in communications, but it first needs to be refined.
There is plenty of room for improvement, agrees Oxborrow. Not being much of a chemist, he managed to burn the demonstration crystal as he tried to make it. "I did a bit of a crème brûlée, as it were," he says sheepishly.
Given that the singed crystal worked, he says that a more neatly made one could improve efficiency at least three fold. Hilsum adds that other tricks will be found to make the maser better. "You can be pretty sure that this is not the end of the story," he says.
This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on August 15, 2012.
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16 Comments
Add CommentCould this be used to beam power from orbiting solar panels to earth?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis would be great for plasma research, especially plasma engines. Microwaves (especially at high energy) are perfect for that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood work, Dr. Oxborrow. It makes me think how many correct conjectures and ideas are in old publications forgotten and collecting dust.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow about Fusion control?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou make us proud. Bold experiment!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIts amazering and shows a host of future applications not yet thought of. For some of you who want to see an earth based mazer future application may be used to beam energy from one place to another one anywhere on earth first thought of in 2003 go here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://shineinnovations.com/6112.html
Imagine processing natural gas at the site like from Alaska's oilfields that it is processed and turned into energy then beamed to anywhere on earth. We wouldn't have to build a 100 billion dollar pipeline from nowhere to do this just launch a inflatable reflective device into geostationary orbit.
At last. Some real science reported in a timely manner. Is this a sign of the return of the good old days at SCIAM?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA maser is not a laser! laser=LIGHT maser=MICROWAVE
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey are NOT the same thing. This title is WRONG!
A maser is NOT a microwave laser - period!
What is it exactly? Or are you saying Microwaves are not photons?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with Ogltree's comment completely:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe term "microwave laser" is completely dumb and inane.
A maser is a maser and an laser is a laser.
Furthermore, this part of the
"First Practical Maser Is Built"
Practical masers have been used for decades. Practical masers are used every day in the Deep Space Network, the Arecibo Observatory, and other places, where their vital function is as very-low-noise microwave amplifiers. It is true that these practical and useful masers operate at cryogenic temperatures.
However, those cryogenic masers do not necessarily have to work at the temperatures of liquid helium or liquid hydrogen. Liquid nitrogen and liquid argon also work.
The term "microwave laser" is genuinely bad.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe maser was invented first, and so the term "optical maser" was used for a short span of years".
However, I have read that this terminology was used mostly by a party to a legal case in the USA wanting to drag things out in his favor.
Charles H. Townes invented the maser first, and then he insisted on "optical maser" for years. However, Thomas H. Maiman (of the Hughes Research Labs) eventually won out and he was granted the U.S. Patent for the LASER, which Maiman had invented in 1960.
There were endless other arguments before the patent was granted years later, and by then, Maiman had spent most of his money on lawyers' fees, and he was an old man, too. He died in about 2007 -- a long time after Townes died, but there were others involved, including a man named Gould.
Anyway, "microwave laser" is a bunch of baloney because the maser was invented earlier, by C. H. Townes.
Please don't argue about technicalities, guys.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think a cheap, room temperature maser is hot stuff regardless of what you call it. Deep Freeze masers may be quite useful for a number of things, but Kitchen Counter operation certainly adds a whole new layer of practicality.
First, Carlyle is so right: about a week ago, the list of items on the daily newsletter read like a parody of a science publication-turned-mush-brained-with-eco-advocacy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSecond and third, the clever Japanese and the inpirational Mrs. Oxborrow are the true generators of this new marvel, midwived by the good if clumsy and dilatory Dr. Oxborrow.
You're right. LASER = Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. MASER = Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. It's not strictly correct to call a maser a "microwave laser".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's see.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you take a particular substance and hit it with a laser while bombarding it with microwaves you get a focused beam of microwaves amplified by several orders of magnitude.
Hmmm.
microwaves...laser....beam...amplification.... Sounds like a microwave laser operation to me. But then what do I know?
Chill people - it's called writing for your audience, not scientific heresy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost people know what a laser is. Very few people know what a maser is. Describing a lesser known object by comparison to a better known object is called "analogy" and it's pretty much a staple of science writing. It's essential when the purpose of your writing is to inform people about complex or technical topics they may have little or no familiarity with. SciAm is, after all, a freaking MAGAZINE not a peer-reviewed science journal.
Congratulations that you know what a maser is. You are smart and special. For the rest of us, the "microwave laser" analogy is helpful and informative, and I don't think that anyone, after reading this, thinks that a maser is a device that turns microwaves into visible light and then amplifies it.