New visions for space telescopes

NASA stumbled into a rare bit of good luck recently when the National Reconnaissance Office did some housecleaning. NRO decided that a pair of space-qualified 2.4 m telescopes dating from the late 1990s were no longer suitable for their original mission in spy satellites. So NRO offered the surplus optics to one of its poorer relations, NASA, for use in new space-based instruments. 

Unexpected hand-me-downs can bring opportunity, like the the piles of Scientific American and Sky & Telescope that came with a house my family rented when I was in high school. Astronomers and NASA scientists are pondering what to do with the windfall. The f/8 Cassegrain telescopes lack instruments, electronics, or spacecraft, but NRO long ago paid for the optics, saving NASA serious money. The Study on Applications for Large Space Optics workshop held February 5 and 6, 2013, in Huntsville, AL heard and discussed 34 proposals for building new instruments around the mirrors. They will be narrowed to six proposals and submitted to NASA management in May.

The range of ideas is impressive. Adaptive optics can do wonders on the ground, but ultraviolet astronomy must remain above the atmosphere, so three proposals call for studying the ultraviolet sky. Other common themes are spectroscopy, planetary science inside the solar system, and attempts to image challenging targets including extrasolar planets.

Bare-bones surplus telescopes inherited by NASA (Government work not subject to copyright)

Some proposals are intriguing. Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ) envisions the Mars Orbiting Space Telescope, and  Zachary Bailey of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, CA) proposes "high-resolution surface science at Mars."  Rebecca Farr of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (Huntsville, AL) proposes using both mirrors as a deep-space binocular telescope stationed at the Lunar L2 Lagrange point.

Not everything is exactly a telescope. Abhijit Biswas of JPL wants to use a mirror as an optical communications node in space. J. H. Clemmons of the Aerospace Corp. (El Segundo, CA) wants to use one in a lidar to explore the Earth's thermosphere.  Richard Eastes of the University of Central Florida (Orlando, FL) has a plan for "Atmospheric TeleConnections on Earth."

There are plenty more listed on the program, and NASA will be recording the proceedings for later viewing. The ideas are not fully formed, of course, and some seem to duplicate others. But there are enough bright ideas to make one hope that NRO can find more goodies sitting in storage for its needy relatives.

Source:  http://science.nasa.gov/salso/telescope-characteristics-and-capabilities/

Broader view for adaptive optics

Adaptive optics has become standard on large ground-based telescopes because it offers far sharper images than otherwise obtainable. However, standard adaptive optics can compensate atmospheric turbulence only over small areas, so they don't let ground-based telescopes match the celestial panoramas imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. Now a new generation of adaptive optics has demonstrated high-resolution imaging over a larger field of view with the Gemini South telescope in Chile.

Proposed more than a decade ago by François Rigaut, now at Australian National University (Canberra, Australia), the Gemini Multi-conjugate adaptive optics System (GEMS) uses five laser guide stars and three deformable mirror to measure atmospheric distortion and compensate for its affects. Sampling at 500 to 1000 Hz, GEMS can compensate for turbulence over an area of sky 16 times larger than previously possible.

The picture below tells the story, alternating images of the "Orion Bullets" region in the Orion Nebula taken with GEMS in December 28, 2012 and of the same region taken in 2007 with the previous-generation ALTAIR adaptive-optics system, which uses a single laser guide star. The larger field of view is 85 arcsec across. Without the adaptive optics, the telescope's resolution at the observation time was 0.8 to 1.1 arcsec. Adding GEMS improved resolution by a factor of ten to 0.084 to 0.103 arcsec.  The bright spots are "bullets" of gas ejected from the core of the nebula that are ripping through molecular hydrogen at speeds to 400 km/s, leaving behind wakes of hot hydrogen.

GEMS also benefits from processing enhancements, which use tomographic techniques to map air turbulence in three dimensions, and correct uniformly across the entire field of view. "This is huge when it's time for astronomers to reduce their data," says Adam Ginsburg, a graduate student at the University of Colorado (Boulder, CO), because observers often need to compare objects in the same field.

Field size has long been a crucial limitation on adaptive optics. The 85-arcsec width of the GEMS image still falls well short of the more than nearly 200-arcsec width of the Ultra Deep Field image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, but it's an important step. With Hubble now well into its third decade in orbit, astronomers need new ways to study the depths of the sky from the ground.

Comparison of images of the same field in the Orion nebula recorded with GEMS and ALTAIR. The white "Orion Bullets" are fast-moving gas clouds leaving hot hydrogen in their wake. Their motion is fast enough to detect in the five years between the 2007 ALTAIR and the 2012 GEMS images.

Zero refractive index

The latest example of the amazing versatility of metamaterials is the demonstration of one that has a refractive index of zero, just reported in Physical Review Letters. Theorists had predicted the possibility of zero-refractive-index materials, and some similar effects have been reported, but the metal-clad glass waveguide developed by Albert Polman's group at the Center for Nanophotonics of the FOM Institute AMOLF (Amsterdam, Netherlands) with Nader Engheta of the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA) is the first to have a near-zero index throughout.

Zero-index materials, like negative-index materials, do not occur in nature, but can be built by assembling subwavelength elements into a structure designed to have the desired characteristics. The left part of the figure shows an electron microscope image of the metamaterial, a small slab of glass encased in silver forming a waveguide 200 nm wide and 2 µm long. The strong interaction between the metal and the glass on that scale gives an entire waveguide an effective refractive index of 0 at 770 nm.

Electron microscope image of a zero-index waveguide, showing a silver-coated nanoscale glass slab 200 nm wide and 2 µm long. The images at right compare the standing-wave pattern visible in a 400-nm-wide tube which disappeared in a 190-nm-wide tube, showing the material has a refractive index of zero at 770 nm. (Courtesy of Albert Polman)

The phase velocity of light is the speed of light divided by the refractive index of the medium, so phase velocity should be infinite for a zero-index material. Similarly, wavelength in a zero-index material should be infinite because it equals the wavelength in vacuum divided by refractive index. To study how the light behaved, Polman and colleagues used a technique they had developed earlier called "cathodoluminescence spectroscopy" to examine light waves in waveguides at various widths. When the index was above zero in a 400 nm waveguide, the light formed standing waves showing normal light propagation, as shown in the figure. But for a 190 nm waveguide the index was near zero, and the standing waves disappeared, as shown at right in the figure, indicating nearly constant phase and nearly infinite phase velocity and wavelength through the waveguide.

Infinite phase velocity does not violate Einstein's cosmic speed limit because phase velocity cannot carry information. Group velocity, the speed of a modulated optical signal, decreases with the refractive index below one, eventually reaching zero for a zero-index material.

That's not all that happens. "As the index approaches n=0 the losses increase, damping out the waves. The index then becomes a complex number of which the real part is 0," Polman told me in an email. That means no light is left to travel at infinite speed after a short distance. Wenshan Cai of Georgia Tech, who wrote a Viewpoint for the online publication Physics, told me the light should travel about 50 to 100 µm--far enough to be useful in integrated optics, but not over macroscopic distances.

A 2011 report of zero refractive index was based on different physics, combining two photonic-crystal materials, one with positive index and the other with negative index, so the net phase advance through the entire structure is zero. A key difference is that the building blocks of photonic-crystal materials are large enough to be seen by the wave, typically half a wavelength, but those of metamaterials are much smaller, so the incident wave responds to it as if it was a bulk material.

How laser 'printing' builds DNA

The concept of using lasers to synthesize DNA with a specified genetic sequence intrigued me so much that I tried to describe it in my October Photonic Frontiers feature. After receiving a grant from the National Science Foundation, the company behind the idea, Cambrian Genomics (San Francisco, CA), has released new details on the process, and my speculation about its nature turned out to be wrong.

Previously, DNA synthesis has been a two-stage assembly process. First individual base pairs are assembled into "oligonucleotide" sequences of 60 to 100 base pairs. Then, a number of those longer chains are stitched together into the synthetic DNA. The process is time-consuming and costs 30 to 50 cents per base pair, a number which adds up for long sequences. I had thought they might be using lasers to manipulate the base pairs into place.

Instead, Cambrian Genomics uses microarray cloning to mass-produce a million oligonucleotides in parallel, a process that has been tried before, but was hampered by the high error rates of microarray synthesis. To overcome that problem, Cambrian synthesizes large volumes of oligonucleotide fragments on microarrays, then uses massively parallel DNA sequencing to sort the different DNA variants and identify those with the desired sequence. Then, says Cambrian founder and CEO Austen Heinz, "we use laser catapulting, also known as laser-induced forward transfer, to eject clonal DNA populations," which were identified as having the desired sequences. The process is a variation on laser capture microdissection, which can excise part of a cell and move it to a desired location without damaging DNA. High-speed laser pulses then eject beads carrying the desired sequences in the right order to assemble into genes on a 384-well plates, as shown in the diagram.

Cambrian Genomics process uses lasers to select oligonucleotides with the desired sequence.

The goal, Cambrian wrote in a summary of its application for a phase-one Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant, "is to be able to recover tens of thousands of sequence-verified oligonucleotides in several hours from sequencer flowcells."  NSF announced on December 5, 2012, a $150,000 grant that will run through the first six months of 2013. Cambrian hopes that will open the door to disruptive reductions in the cost of DNA synthesis.

Display technology getting ahead of the market

Peter Jackson's decision to shoot The Hobbit at 48 frames per second brought optical technology into many holiday-party conversations, at least among technologists and movie buffs. Together with demonstrations of video screens with horizontal resolution of 8000 pixels, it raises the question of whether the cutting edge of large-screen display technology is getting too far ahead of the market.

From the production side, it makes sense to record a movie in the best quality available at reasonable cost. It's easy to reduce resolution or frame rate to current mass-distribution standards. Theaters can charge extra for the highest quality screenings, as they have done for 3D. And archival copies should be compatible with the next generation or two of technologies.


From the display side, reviewers had mixed reactions. They found some parts spectacular, but sometimes too revealing. As Lucy O'Brien wrote on the gaming site IGN.com, "The problem with doubling the frame-rate in The Hobbit is a problem of scrutiny; you can see all its tricks."

The push for higher video screen resolution comes largely from the consumer electronics industry. Aided by government mandates to convert to digital broadcasting, the industry persuaded the public to switch to flat-panel high-definition televisions showing 720 or 1080 lines, corresponding to widths of 1280 or 1920 pixels respectively. But the public largely passed on 3D television, and in uncertain times they have been slow to step up to larger screens, so manufacturers have slashed prices to bolster sales.

Two ultra-high-definition formats are in development. One that doubles resolution is called 4K, for a nominal width of 4000 pixels (actually 3840 x 2160 pixels). An alternative called 8K quadruples resolution to a nominal width of 8000 pixels (actually 7680 x 4320 pixels). Some 4K equipment is available, and 8K has been demonstrated. However, big challenges remain, writes Pete Putman of Display Daily, including lack of production equipment and cameras, high screen costs, and the need for much more bandwidth to carry the larger files.

Unlike 3DTV, ultra-high-def won't give you a headache or require special glasses. It makes sense for future-proofing video production, and it could be a selling point for video venues or sports bars.  But for now, ultra-high-def has gotten far ahead of the home television market, which is getting to like today's low prices.

Bright future for silicon

The Wiley-VCH journal ChemPhysChem issued an embargoed press release embargoed early on the morning of November 21, 2012, heralding "a bright future for silicon." Just eight hours later, they lifted the embargo, citing "early reporting" of the research by Brian Korgel of the University of Texas (Austin, TX) and colleagues.

Embargo breaks often indicate hot stories, and the headline hinted at an important step toward the elusive goal of efficient light emission from silicon. Yet the next line was more muted: "Ordered nanocrystal arrays may provide a new platform to study and tailor the light-emitting properties of silicon." What is the real story?

Silicon is a wonderful material for electronics, but its photonic uses have been hobbled by an indirect bandgap that makes it very hard for electrons dropping into the valence band to release their energy as photons. That leaves silicon far behind III-V compounds like gallium arsenide for LEDs and diode lasers. Yet silicon is far ahead of other semiconductors in electronics, and companies like Intel (Santa Clara, CA) want to integrate photonics into their integrated circuits.

So far they have demonstrated "silicon lasers" by optically pumping Raman lines in silicon and III-V diode laser chips bonded to silicon. Both were important advances. But neither met the real goal--electrically powered emitters based on silicon that could be integrated into standard semiconductor chip production processes.

In their ChemPhysChem paper, Korgel and colleagues take a different approach, tapping the bright luminescence produced by silicon quantum dots. They write that their major achievement is devising a chemical technique that causes self-assembly of "the first colloidal Si nanocrystal superlattices." Self-assembly is essential because individual dots are too small to fabricate by conventional photolithography, and transmission electron microscope images show the dots are closely spaced in regular face-centered-cubic arrangements (see photo).

TEM image silicon nanocrystals in the 111-oriented (c) and 112-oriented (d) plans, with depictions of the crystalline structures shown in insets. (Courtesy Yixuan Yu et al., ChemPhysChem, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cphc.201200738 [2012]. Reproduced with permission)

The authors say that covalent bonds with the hydrocarbon solvent make the silicon-nanocrystal superlattices stable to 350 degrees Celsius, higher than other similar superlattices. That's encouraging news, because self-organized nanocrystals are a promising fresh approach to structuring silicon to emit light more efficiently. But so far electrical excitation--sought for integrated optoelectronics--has far to go to match the efficiency of optical excitation of isolated silicon quantum dots. So Korgel is understandably optimistic about having "a new playground for understanding and manipulating the properties of silicon in new and unique ways," and is appropriately cautious in not claiming silicon lasers are just around the corner.

Making solid-state lighting fun

Solid-state lighting is a clean, green new market for optical technology, but it's hard to get very excited about white LEDs that merely replace older incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. Now, Philips is trying to make solid-state lighting fun with wirelessly controlled color-tunable bulbs called "Hue".

A Hue bulb screws into a standard light socket and contains red, green, and blue LEDs. A smartphone or iPad app controls the bulb's output through a wireless controller and a wireless receiver in the bulb. The app matches the LED outputs colors selected from a rainbow palette in the app, or from the user's favorite photos. Users can pick bright disco colors, shades of white from candlelight to sunlight, or anything in between.

A $200 starter set including the controller and three bulbs sounds like an impulse buy at the Apple Store -- and that's exactly where Philips is selling it, as a fun gadget. A single 600-lumen Hue bulb will set you back $60, more than triple the price of a Philips Ambient bulb that emits a pleasant white light. But playing with colored lights is much more fun, as Philips shows in a video.

The Hue isn't just a party light. You can set it to emit shades of white from a bright "energize" tone to start the morning to a warm "relax" shade to unwind in the evening. You can set each bulb to turn on and off when you want it. So it's an all-purpose adjustable light ready to put into any socket in the house, without costly rewiring.

Philips is first to market, but company is coming. LiFx (San Francisco, CA) in September sought support on Kickstarter to develop their own smart bulb, and was surprised to receive $1.3 million in pledges when they had sought only $100,000. They have demonstrated a bench version and now are designing a production prototype, which will include a white LED as well as the RGB emitters.

So far press attention has focused on controls and tunable colors, but I wonder what the green sources are. Philips is using a "lime green" LED from its LumiLEDs division because it gives better color rendering than standard green LEDs, but won't disclose the wavelength or composition. Is it a hard-to-make green LED, a phosphor-LED hybrid, or something else?  If anybody out there has a spectrophotometer and a Hue at hand, it would be interesting to see a spectrum.

iPhone sets a Philips Hue bulb to "relax" for a calming evening. (Courtesy of Philips Lighting)