Tag Archives: LIGO

Weekly Lasers Wrap Up – Week of December 5, 2016

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The Laser Institute of America LasersToday.com Weekly Wrap-Up aggregates industry news, conference updates, and LIA happenings. Here is the latest:

Laser Industry News

This week, Lasers Today featured a guest blog discussing additive manufacturing using hot wire and powder processes. The post gives an in-depth overview of laser cladding, powder cladding, hot & cold wire cladding, including processes and tools used for each. Find it here.

After performing a few updates, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) is back online. Over the last year, updates on LIGO’s lasers, electronics, and other assets have increased its sensitivity by 10 to 25 percent. Check out the interview with Peter Fritschel, the associate director of LIGO at MIT here.

Following the passage of the 21st Century Cures act, the National Photonics Initiative applauds House leaders for their decision. The bill provides $4.8 billion for advanced research on medicine initiatives. The involvement of optics and photonics in health care technology leads to less invasive, more cost-effective treatment for patients. Learn more about the bill here.

LIA Updates

Peter Baker is the first ever recipient of the LIA Leadership Award. This award focuses on “an individual who has demonstrated outstanding leadership in an organization or a company and has significantly benefited the world laser community.  The recipient may have also led to major global impacts in the advancement of laser science, technology, engineering, education or applications.” Baker has lead LIA for 28 years, playing an immeasurable part in LIA’s impact on the laser community. Read the full press release here.

Did you know that Student Membership with LIA is only $25? LIA members enjoy complimentary subscriptions to LIA publications, discounts on LIA courses, conferences, & seminars, networking opportunities, and more! Get the details here.

Conference News

Laser Additive Manufacturing Workshop (LAM) will take place February 21-22, 2017 in Houston, Texas. LAM features presentations from researchers and industry leaders pertaining to the use of additive manufacturing. This year will feature a new session on micro/nano laser additive manufacturing research. Register today here.

Don’t miss a single laser industry update! Sign up today to receive the latest in lasers delivered straight to your inbox. Be sure to follow LIA on Facebook and Twitter for even more laser news.

The Laser Institute of America (LIA) is the international society for laser applications and safety. Our mission is to foster lasers, laser applications, and laser safety worldwide. Find us at www.lia.org

Unparalleled Laser Innovations Mark the 35th Edition of ICALEO

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Laser Institute of America’s annual meeting of academia and industry highlighted new developments in laser technology and provided a platform for global networking

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ORLANDO, FL, NOVEMBER 8, 2016 — Over 400 attendees from 20 countries gathered from October 16-20, 2016 at the Sheraton® San Diego in San Diego, CA, for the 2016 Laser Institute of America’s International Congress on Applications of Lasers & Electro-Optics (ICALEO®).

Gathering a highly engaged group of field veterans, new registrants and students, this year’s ICALEO featured more than 200 presentations, 59 peer-reviewed talks, comprehensive biophotonics coverage, and the introduction of the new ICALEO mobile app. Returning Congress General Chair Silke Pflueger was back at the helm helping compile the most highly-rated Opening Plenary presentations delivered at an ICALEO conference thus far.

“We worked so hard this year to ensure, ICALEO 2016 once again exceeded all expectations,” said Pflueger. “Our opening plenary session is a great example. From visiting Mars, to self-driving cars and a LIGO revisit, we inspired new outlooks and forged new relationships, which is what ICALEO is all about.”

Opening plenary speakers included Nina Lanza from Los Alamos National Laboratory, who linked humanity together in her discussion about the laser used aboard the Opportunity rover on Mars, and Jim McBride from Ford Motor Company, who talked about the challenges of sensing on fully autonomous vehicles. Albert Lazzarini, Deputy Director of LIGO Laboratory at California Institute of Technology, presented breaking results regarding black holes made from the first gravitational waves detected by LIGO.

This year’s ICALEO also featured a variety of laser research and experimentation revelations, from the use of lasers in emerging areas, like paint stripping and dairy, to microprocessing and several new opportunities in wearables and medicine.

Highlights of the roughly 200 presentations include:

  • The writing of skin by 3D printed cells with ultrafast lasers, and insight into how creating structures on the surface of a biomaterial with lasers may eventually be able to control cell spreading
  • How to improve processing speed and precision with new beam delivery and beam shaping techniques, and how to optimize later cutting processes through Time Resolved Analysis of Nanosecond Pulsed Laser Processing of CFRP
  • A laser technique to modify the surface of bulk glass, called Picosecond Laser Pulses for Spatially Resolved Gloss Reduction, which demonstrated glass with dramatic gloss reduction by direct laser structuring
  • A new laser-assisted doping process that allows high performance devices to be fabricated from ultra-thin films of 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs).
  • The successful applications of laser ablation for next generation contactless payment cards and flexible wearable devices and the generation of flexible printed “batteries” for future bendable, wearable and portable devices

Other highlights include LIA Executive Director Peter Baker’s honor as the first recipient of the new LIA Leadership Award. Retiring next April, Baker commented on his meaningful career: “At LIA we’re saving eyesight, preventing skin damage, and helping create laser technologies, products, and services that make the world a better place.”

The 2016 Arthur L. Schawlow Award was awarded to Yongfeng Lu, the Lott Distinguished Professor of Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, LIA Board Member, Past President, Treasurer and Fellow. LIA also honored Silke Pflueger and Neil Ball by elevating them to the highest level of membership as LIA Fellows.

By unanimous decision, the first place ICALEO Poster Award went to Kohei Asano and his colleagues from Osaka University, the Industrial Research Institute of Ishikawa, and Yamazaki Mazak Corporation in Japan for their poster Copper Layer Formation Produced with 100W Blue Direct Diode Laser System, while the first place Student Paper Award winner was Christian Hagenlocher from IFSW in Stuttgart, Germany, for his paper Space and Time Resolved Determination of Thermomechanical Deformation Adjacent to the Solidification Zone during Hot Crack Formation in Laser Welding.

As the 35th ICALEO ended, Neil Ball, newly-honored LIA Fellow, called the breakthrough laser event, “bar none, the best networking opportunity and the best opportunity to look forward and see what applications are on the horizon.”

Ken Dzurko, General Manager of SPI Lasers said, “LIA does a great job creating a comfortable, relaxed mood right for exchanging ideas at this one-of-a-kind event that’s really the world’s premier gathering of scientists interested in laser applications.”

ICALEO 2016 proceedings are available for sale at www.lia.org/store. For more information on ICALEO 2017, held Oct 22-26 in Atlanta, GA, visit www.lia.org/conferences/icaleo.

About LIA

The Laser Institute of America (LIA) is the professional society for laser applications and safety serving the industrial, educational, medical, research and government communities throughout the world since 1968. www.lia.org, 13501 Ingenuity Drive, Ste 128, Orlando, FL 32826, +1.407.380.1553.

How Lasers Helped Researchers Detect Gravitational Waves

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For the first time, scientists were able to detect the existence of gravitational waves. These waves, or “ripples in space-time,” were first predicted in Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Over 100 years later, with the help of laser technology, the prediction has proven to be true.

The waves were detected by LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) — a massive experiment developed by Kip Thorne and Ronald Drever. LIGO consists of two Observatories; one in Livingston, LA and another in Richland, WA. The distance between the two sites help to gauge the source of the wave, by helping to measure discrepancies in arrival time. Both observatories consist of an L-shaped, high-powered vacuum system, measuring approximately 2.5 miles on each side. Each vacuum system can hold five interferometers. The interferometers have mirrors suspended on each corner of the “L” shape. A laser then emits a beam up to 200 W, which passes through an optical mode cleaner, before the beam is split at the L’s vertex. The beam then travels down the length of the leg. Each leg of the “L” contains a Fabry-Pérot Interferometer cavity, which consist of a transparent plate with two reflective surfaces, which store the beams and help to increase the path length.

In the event that a gravitational wave passes through the interferometer, the area’s space-time is altered. Depending on the length of the wave, and its source, this will cause a change in the length of the cavities. This length change in the beams will cause the existing light inside the system to become slightly out of phase with the light entering. This will then cause the cavity to become occasionally out of coherence, and the beams will vary in detuning becoming a measuring signal.

After numerous trips down the lengths to the mirrors and back, the beams leave the legs and meet at the split. The beams are kept out of phase so that when the legs are operating as normal, no light should be able to reach the photodiode. When a gravitational wave passes through, the legs of the interferometer shorten and lengthen, allowing light to reach the photodiode. This indicates the signal of a gravitational wave. Signals are then compared between the two observation sites to reduce the chance of unrelated noise creating a potential signal.

The initial detection of gravitational waves took place months before the rest of world received the news. On September 14, 2015, Marco Drago, a LIGO team member, was sitting in his Hanover, Germany office at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics. Here, Drago monitors one of four computer systems that displays data for any significant variations in signals detected by LIGO. While on a phone call, Drago received his daily notification on the status of LIGO, only to find that both structures detected “an event” or irregular reading.

Drago initially took the discovery with a grain of salt, and assumed the reading was artificial. In order to test the LIGO facilities, the team had developed a way to create a “false” signal, mostly to keep researchers alert for possible developments. To most LIGO team members, this was just another “blind signal injection.” Normally, the reading would have been simply noted, then verified later. What made this reading so different from others in the past, was the fact that due to some necessary system tune ups, the machines needed to conduct the injection were not currently operational. After checking in with other team members, and seeking possible false readings, such as an earthquake or other natural event, there was nothing to say that the signal detected was not the result of a gravitational wave. The next few months were spent running numerous analyses to verify that it was no fluke. By February, the verdict was out: LIGO discovered a true gravitational wave.

The wave detected by LIGO was the result of two massive black holes colliding, over one billion years ago. The impact of the two gravitational fields sent gravitational waves through the universe, eventually reaching Earth, in September. The wave is said to have stretched space by one part in 1021, causing Earth to grow and shrink by 1/100,000 of a millimeter. The detection of the waves simultaneously tests Einstein’s theories of both general relativity and gravity, as well as provides proof for the existence of black holes.

LIGO’s detection of a gravitational wave is an immensely notable discovery for the study of physics; one that would not be possible, were it not for the application of laser technology. The constantly growing application of lasers opens the door for further discoveries and innovations, in many fields. Laser Institute of America promotes this continuous growth and the safe use of laser applications. Visit www.lia.org to find out how to enhance your own laser safety knowledge.