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Room-temperature solid-state maser.

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Title: Room-temperature solid-state maser.
Authors: Oxborrow, Mark, Breeze, Jonathan D., Alford, Neil M.
Source: Nature. 8/16/2012, Vol. 488 Issue 7411, p353-356. 4p. 2 Diagrams, 2 Graphs.
Subjects: Masers, Temperature, Free electron lasers, Atomic hydrogen masers, Vacuum chambers, Microwaves, Electric oscillators, Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy
Abstract: The invention of the laser has resulted in many innovations, and the device has become ubiquitous. However, the maser, which amplifies microwave radiation rather than visible light, has not had as large an impact, despite being instrumental in the laser's birth. The maser's relative obscurity has mainly been due to the inconvenience of the operating conditions needed for its various realizations: atomic and free-electron masers require vacuum chambers and pumping; and solid-state masers, although they excel as low-noise amplifiers and are occasionally incorporated in ultrastable oscillators, typically require cryogenic refrigeration. Most realizations of masers also require strong magnets, magnetic shielding or both. Overcoming these various obstacles would pave the way for improvements such as more-sensitive chemical assays, more-precise determinations of biomolecular structure and function, and more-accurate medical diagnostics (including tomography) based on enhanced magnetic resonance spectrometers incorporating maser amplifiers and oscillators. Here we report the experimental demonstration of a solid-state maser operating at room temperature in pulsed mode. It works on a laboratory bench, in air, in the terrestrial magnetic field and amplifies at around 1.45 gigahertz. In contrast to the cryogenic ruby maser, in our maser the gain medium is an organic mixed molecular crystal, p-terphenyl doped with pentacene, the latter being photo-excited by yellow light. The maser's pumping mechanism exploits spin-selective molecular intersystem crossing into pentacene's triplet ground state. When configured as an oscillator, the solid-state maser's measured output power of around ?10 decibel milliwatts is approximately 100 million times greater than that of an atomic hydrogen maser, which oscillates at a similar frequency (about 1.42 gigahertz). By exploiting the high levels of spin polarization readily generated by intersystem crossing in photo-excited pentacene and other aromatic molecules, this new type of maser seems to be capable of amplifying with a residual noise temperature far below room temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of Nature is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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  Data: The invention of the laser has resulted in many innovations, and the device has become ubiquitous. However, the maser, which amplifies microwave radiation rather than visible light, has not had as large an impact, despite being instrumental in the laser's birth. The maser's relative obscurity has mainly been due to the inconvenience of the operating conditions needed for its various realizations: atomic and free-electron masers require vacuum chambers and pumping; and solid-state masers, although they excel as low-noise amplifiers and are occasionally incorporated in ultrastable oscillators, typically require cryogenic refrigeration. Most realizations of masers also require strong magnets, magnetic shielding or both. Overcoming these various obstacles would pave the way for improvements such as more-sensitive chemical assays, more-precise determinations of biomolecular structure and function, and more-accurate medical diagnostics (including tomography) based on enhanced magnetic resonance spectrometers incorporating maser amplifiers and oscillators. Here we report the experimental demonstration of a solid-state maser operating at room temperature in pulsed mode. It works on a laboratory bench, in air, in the terrestrial magnetic field and amplifies at around 1.45 gigahertz. In contrast to the cryogenic ruby maser, in our maser the gain medium is an organic mixed molecular crystal, p-terphenyl doped with pentacene, the latter being photo-excited by yellow light. The maser's pumping mechanism exploits spin-selective molecular intersystem crossing into pentacene's triplet ground state. When configured as an oscillator, the solid-state maser's measured output power of around ?10 decibel milliwatts is approximately 100 million times greater than that of an atomic hydrogen maser, which oscillates at a similar frequency (about 1.42 gigahertz). By exploiting the high levels of spin polarization readily generated by intersystem crossing in photo-excited pentacene and other aromatic molecules, this new type of maser seems to be capable of amplifying with a residual noise temperature far below room temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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  Data: <i>Copyright of Nature is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.</i> (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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              Text: 8/16/2012
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