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MASER stands for 'Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation'. They were first discovered in the 1950s and were the pre-cursors to lasers, which would go on to be integrated into many industrial and commercial applications. But MASERs have barely been developed in the last few decades due to the complexity and expense of making them.
However, they could be useful. MASERs can detect and amplify weak electromagnetic signals without adding noise, and could be used for more sensitive magnetic resonance body scanners, quantum optical coherence tomography, advanced quantum computer components, portable atomic clocks, and better radio astronomy devices for deep space exploration.
Until recently, though, you needed a vacuum and a high magnetic field. However, Northumbria's Dr Juna Sathian and colleagues have spent the last eight years working on a room-temperature MASER using organic para-terphenyl crystals doped with pentacene molecules and inorganic diamond crystals with nitrogen-vacancy defects. But this method is expensive and hard to replicate.
The EPSRC grant will allow Sathian to develop a new type of room-temperature MASER powered by LEDs. “MASERs have so much potential and could be used in lots of different ways to improve our everyday lives – from improving satellite communications to airport security," she said.
“I’m delighted to be awarded this new investigator grant from the EPSRC as it will allow me to take my MASER research forward, with the aim of producing a MASER device which is cost-effective, safe and environmentally friendly. It will also firmly establish the UK, and Northumbria University in particular, as a real centre for research expertise in this area.”
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