About two years ago, I was speculating about the never ending but rapidly progressing process of humanity gaining control (mastery) of information, light, energy, magnetism, and matter. (ILEMM control) I would also add another L for life referring to synthetic life, genomic, protenomics, epigenomics and control of stem cells and other cells. So ILLEMM control. Although life could be considered a mix of information, matter and energy. I believe that the advance in knowledge and the way that these gains are interacting is profound. It is the accelerating technology discussed by Kurzweil. However, I think it is possible to make projections as to where this progress will lead in a more detailed way.
I believe that superconductors and progress to room temperature superconductors is moving faster than I had believed. Having whole new families of superconducting material edges and having the tools to analyze effects at the nanoscale in size and at smaller slices of time [more powerful femtosecond lasers and optical clocks with accuracy to 10**-16 and 10*-17 seconds.. More on the improving accuracy of clocks.]
The improving tools for analysis and the increasing number of examples to be studied appears to be leading to an actual understanding of the true nature of the superconducting effect. There has also been the uncovering of an entirely new effect "superinsulation" which is the opposite of superconductance
There has been the resist confirmation and physical realization of a new basic circuit element, the memristor. This new element is added to the other three the resistor, capacitor and inductor as the fourth fundamental circuit element.
New states of matter are being discovered as frequently as when the periodic table of chemicals was being expanded a few decades ago.
Radically new things are being done with sound to create hypersound and acoustic lasers.
I will be adding other highlights major highlights to this article.
FURTHER READING
Peizoresistance effect that is ten times larger than in the past at room temperature for better motion detectors.
May 09, 2008
Tracking progress to controlling light, life and matter
July 25, 2007
More military laser projects
Al Fin points out that Boeing has been awarded a High-Energy Laser Technology Demonstrator project to put a battlefield laser onto a truck
Has a summary of more military laser projects
The 100 kW JHPSSL lasers won’t be ready to deliver to the battlefield. The program aims to demonstrate technology that the armed services can adapt for their weapon platforms on the ground, in the air, or at sea. The high-energy laser and the beam-control system are “the two technology drivers” for weapon systems, says William Gnacek, HEL TD program manager at the Army Space and Missile Defense Command. Once those technologies are demonstrated, a ruggedized laser and beam-control system will be integrated with power generation, thermal management, and fire control and communications systems for use on a wheeled vehicle to be tested against rockets, artillery and mortars in 2013.
Military agencies are also looking at less mature technologies. Neice is working on a joint program to develop fiber lasers, which he says have the potential to match chemical-laser efficiency. Key technical issues are raising output of single-mode lasers and developing ways to combine their output into a high-quality beam. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA, Arlington, VA) has launched a program called Architecture for Diode High Energy Laser Systems to develop diode lasers with efficiency greater than 60% and high-quality, low-divergence beams delivering 10 kW.
This past article shows that I believe the incremental improvement to military capabilities from lasers is less important than the revolutionary change of successfully deploying arrays of cheap, high efficiency lasers for launching vehicles into space
The scientific and technological advancement that is enabled by using lasers to understand and modify matter will have far more impact that crudely using lasers to blast things in battle More powerful weapons will come from using lasers to help unlock things like nuclear fusion.
March 12, 2007
Atomic Design of Superstrong Materials
From MIT Technology Review, researchers have learned how to design the nanoscale features of materials to make them four times stronger without making them brittle. The new insight is the result of a significant improvement to an existing computer model that allowed researchers to, for the first time, simulate the complex mechanical behavior of nanostructures in metals. The advance is part of a larger ongoing effort to use software to discover new materials that would be impossible or impractical to discover using experiments alone.
The work "Interfacial plasticity governs strain rate sensitivity and ductility in nanostructured metals", described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers at MIT, Ohio State, and the Georgia Institute of Technology, could lead to more-durable materials for gears in microscale machines. Subra Suresh (MIT), Ting Zhu (Georgia Tech), Ju Li (Ohio State), Amit Samanta (Ohio State) and Hyoung Gyu Kim (Ohio State) were the authors. It could also lead to coatings that dramatically improve the performance of larger-scale structures, such as metal plating on artificial joints, says Subra Suresh, professor of materials science and engineering at MIT.
For decades, researchers have known that making the grains smaller--say, 10 nanometers across instead of a few micrometers--makes the material stronger. That's because there are more grains and, therefore, more boundaries that prevent the atoms from shifting.
A few years ago, researchers at the Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science in China synthesized a novel form of nanostructured metal, nano-twinned copper. The material was created by introducing controlled concentrations of twin boundaries within very small grains of the metal using a technique known as pulsed electrodeposition. The Shenyang group, working in collaboration with Suresh's group at MIT, demonstrated in the last two years that nano-twinned copper has many of the same desirable characteristics as nano-grained copper, and in addition resulted in a good combination of strength and ductility. By controlling the thickness and spacing of twin boundaries inside small grains to nanometer-level precision, they were able to produce copper with different "tunable" combinations of strength and ductility.
If too much force is applied, however, the dislocated atoms at these boundaries can cause the materials to break apart. This makes nanostructured materials more brittle.
The new version of copper contains another set of boundaries, called twins. These occur inside a grain when atoms on either side of an imaginary line are mirror images of each other. In the new copper, the grains are much larger than 10 nanometers, but they're divided into twins with boundaries about 10 nanometers apart. These boundaries are much more orderly than grain boundaries are.
February 23, 2007
Photonic Laser Propulsion
Photonic Laser Propulsion has had a proof of concept demo it generated 35 micronewtons of thrust using mirrors that generated 3000 times amplification. The low power version would be great for position control of multiple satellites to nanometer precision.
UPDATE: It has been proposed that extremely small payloads (10 kg) could be delivered to Mars in only 10 days of travel time using laser-based lightsail caft (Meyer, 1984), but in order to do so, would require a 47 GW laser system. With 47,000 reflections then only a 1MW laser system would be needed. (fifty 20KW lasers). Scaling up 100 times would be able to deliver 1 ton payloads to Mars in ten days.
"Multi-Bounce Laser-Based Sails", written by Robert A. Metzger and Geoffrey Landis
Molecular nanotechnology could help put this technology over the top, with far better mirrors, lighter systems, better lasers, mass production of lasers and other benefits.
The 10 watt laser was based on 100 watts for the total satellite power budget. Thus the best mirrors (20,000 times amplification) would deliver 1.3 milliNewtons.
If they can use the MIT dielectric mirrors those are supposed to reflect 99.999% of the light which would have 100,000 times amplification.
Scaling it up for more power.
130 millinewtons per kilowatt (0.13 N/kw)
But 10 MW lasers would give 1300 newtons.
Continuous beam electric lasers have about 27 kilowatts of power. Although stay on all day lasers seem to be at about 10-13 kilowatts.
more on lasers at wikipedia In some applications you could use more powerful chemically pumped or other types of lasers.
The website for the research group talks about using the system for ground launch and for accelerating to light speed. I could see ground launch.
This PDF looks at another study for using many lasers to ground launch. The mirror system could make such a ground launch system more efficient.
Get a big power source and a very powerful laser(s). As a major propulsion system it would still seem to have issues maintaining targeting between the two mirrors.
Robert forward originally proposed the laser sail concept Robert Forward first proposed the idea of the laser sail, though his ideas used 1000 km lenses, a laser producing 10-million-gigawatts and 1000 km sails.
Geoffrey Landis has done work to advance laser and microwave pushed lightsails
Other laser sail concepts
It would seem that the mirror amplification could be helpful in reducing certain system requirements.
I presume the architecture is to stick the launching system in space where there would not be atmospheric distortion and losses. The mirror on a large asteroid or body without atmosphere and far heavier than the thing being launched. Then firing up the nuclear generator on the asteroid and firing the lasers that bounce between the mirrors. One mirror on the ship and one on the asteroid.
If the problems of making the more powerful lasers, targeting and better mirrors can be overcome. The ISP in the tables for the photonic laser propulsion is 40 million. (between 10**7 and 10**8). This is the highest ISP system that I have seen.
| ISP Hours | ISP seconds | |
| Photonic drive | 11,236 | 40 million |
| AM-Beam MAX | 2,834 | 10 million |
| H->Fe Fusion MAX | 1,417 | 5.1 million |
| H->He Fusion MAX | 850 | 3.1 million |
| IC-Fusion MAX | 283 | 1 million |
| ORION MAX | 278 | 1 million |
| NSWR 90% UTB MAX | 133 | 479,000 |
| AIM | 17 | 61200 |
| mag Orion | 8.2 | 30000 |
| VASIMR (high gear) | 8 | 28800 |
| Mini-Mag Orion | 6 | 21600 |
| ORION Low Altitude | 4 | 14400 |
| Space Shuttle | 0 | 455 |
December 07, 2006
Plasmons - bridging optics and electronics
New light physics with plasmons that could bridge light, matter and electronics. Plasmon computers could operate at 100 Terahertz - 1000 terahertz or 20,000 to 200,000 times faster than mainstream computer chips. Part of what I think is the growing trend of greater control of all information, light, energy, matter and magnetism. (ILEMM)
Two-dimensional light, or plasmons, can be triggered when light strikes a patterned metallic surface. Plasmons (wikipedia) may well serve as a proxy for bridging the divide between photonics (high throughput of data but also at the relatively large circuit dimensions of one micron, or one thousandth of a millimeter) and electronics (relatively low throughput but tiny dimensions of tens of nanometers, or millionths of a millimeter).
One might be able to establish a hybrid discipline, plasmonics, in which light is first converted into plasmons, which then propagate in a metallic surface but with a wavelength smaller than the original light; the plasmons could then be processed with their own two-dimensional optical components (mirrors, waveguides, lenses, etc.), and later plasmons could be turned back into light or into electric signals.
Plasmon microscope:
Igor Smolyaninov (University of Maryland, smoly@eng.umd.edu) reported that he and his colleagues were able to image tiny objects lying in a plane with spatial resolution as good as 60 nm (when mathematical tricks are applied, the resolution becomes 30 nm) using plasmons that had been excited in that plane by laser light at a wavelength of 515 nm. In other words, they achieve microscopy with a spatial resolution much better than diffraction would normally allow; furthermore, this is far-field microscopy -- the light source doesn't have to be located less than a light-wavelength away from the object.
This work is essentially a Flatland version of optics. They use 2D plasmon mirrors and lenses to help in the imaging and then conduct plasmons away by a waveguide.
Future plasmon circuits at optical frequencies:
Nader Engheta (University of Pennsylvania, engheta@ee.upenn.edu) argued that nano-particles, some supporting plasmon excitations, could be configured to act as nm-sized capacitors, resistors, and inductors -- the basic elements of any electrical circuit.
The circuit in this case would be able to operate not at radio (10**10 Hz) or microwave (10**12 Hz) frequencies but at optical (10**15 Hz) frequencies. This would make possible the miniaturization and direct processing of optical signals with nano-antennas, nano-circuit-filters, nano-waveguides, nano-resonators, and may lead to possible applications in nano-computing, nano-storage, molecular signaling, and molecular-optical interfacing.
More physics papers on plasmons
Tags:
plasmons
plasmonics
ILEMM
New sound physics: hypersound and acoustic lasers
Radically new and powerful things are being done with sound. Part of what I think is the growing trend of greater control of all information, light, energy, matter and magnetism. (ILEMM) Molecular nanotechnology and advanced metamaterials would be milestones in the control of matter which will also provide greater control of energy. Better material devices will also mean better capabilities to investigate and understand phenomena.
Hypersound, acoustic pulsation at 200 gigahertz frequencies, has been produced in the same kind of resonant multilayered semiconductor cavity as used in photonics.
They believe that a new field, nanophononics, has been inaugurated, and that the acoustical properties of semiconductor nanodevices will become more prominent.
THz sound might also participate in the development of powerful "acoustic lasers" or in novel forms of tomography for imaging the interior of opaque solids.
A new kind of Acoustic Laser, sound amplification by stimulated emission of raciation, or SASER, is the acoustic analog of a laser. Instead of a feedback-built potent wave of electromagnetic radiation, a saser would deliver a potent ultrasound wave.
In lasers the light buildup is maintained by a reflective optical cavity. In the U.K.-Ukraine saser, the acoustic buildup is maintained by an artful spacing of the lattice layer thicknesses in such a way that the layers act as an acoustic mirror.
Eventually the sound wave emerges from the device at a narrow angular range, as do laser pulses. The monoenergetic nature of the acoustic emission, however, has not yet been fully probed. The researchers believe their saser is the first to reach the terahertz frequency range while using also modest electrical power input.
Further reading:
More physics papers on hypersound
More physics papers on acoustic lasers
More physics papers on metamaterials
Tags:
hypersound
acoustic laser
metamaterials
ILEMM
August 30, 2006
Speculation: Room temperature superconductors : milestone to complete master of energy and matter
By getting superconducting theory right (or making enough progress from theory and better experiment), we could guide material design of room temperature superconductors, higher current density material, better electronics, better power grid, possible magnetically ground launched space craft.
Room-temperature superconductors would be an important milestone on the path to complete mastery (within the actual limits of physics) of information, light, energy, magnetism, and matter. (ILEMM control)
What seems doable with far greater mastery of ILEMM:
Molecular nanotechnology
Large scale Quantum computers (millions of qubits)
Large scale space structures for solar energy collection and propulsion
Magnetic formation flying
Magnetically inflated cable
Light sails and beamed propulsion
Advanced magsails. Able to be ground launched if current densities could go up about 100-1000 times from the best available now.
More on magsails
PDF on magsails
Advanced metamaterials
Antimatter storage and harvesting work could eventually lead to the large scale creation of artificial mini-magnetospheres to allow antimatter to be created and collected.
