10/4/18

There’s no Eureka Moment Indeed: Nobel Prize in Physics 2018


There’s no Eureka Moment Indeed: Nobel Prize in Physics 2018

‘When I described catching living things with light people said: Don’t exaggerate’ – Arthur Ashkin said during a telephone interview to Nobel committee after he was awarded half of the Nobel prize in Physics this year. Really, it seems a kind of science fiction to use light to move objects, but it is true. In his 1970’s famous paper – Acceleration and trapping of particles by radiation pressure – published in Physical Review Letters, Ashkin demonstrated, for the first time, the movement of freely suspended microparticles using optical force generated from a continuous wave visible laser light. This was a breakthrough experiment which opened doors for atoms, molecules and even living cells which can be selectively trapped and manipulated by optical force. Later, in 1987, he came up with another report of optical trapping and manipulation of viruses and bacteria using an argon laser, which he published in Science. Tobacco mosaic viruses and Escherichia coli bacteria were trapped in aqueous solution without any damage. This work was further extended to single cells of yeasts. With time, this innovative approach of manipulating objects and microorganisms, popularly known as ‘optical tweezers’, was modified and used by physicist, chemists and biologists, making it the most versatile tool for microfabrication. Nowadays, multiple laser beams are used for the three-dimensional optical trapping of materials. Recently, Biju lab in Hokkaido University (http://bijulab.main.jp/en/) demonstrated for the first time the use of optical tweezers in trapping the solvated ion complex of salts inducing crystallization and growth of lead halide perovskites. Interesting! isn’t it? So, what makes light to levitate and move objects? Let’s have a look.


 Principle of laser trapping


Optical force, usually in the range of 1 to 100 pN, arises by a net momentum change of light when a tightly focused laser beam interacts with a particle whose diameter is larger than the wavelength of the laser. The change in momentum of light corresponds to the change in refractive index (between the medium and the particle) when light is refracted from the surface of a particle. When the refractive index of the particle is greater than the surrounding medium, an equal and opposite momentum change is exerted on the particle satisfying the law of conservation of momentum. When we augment all the momentum change at each point of the particle we get the optical force. This force is resolved into two components: axial force (F­axial) and transaxial force (Ftrans). When F­axial ­> Ftrans, the net optical force (F) is directed towards the high intensity region of the laser beam, thus pulling the particles and trapping them at the focal spot of the laser. On the other hand, When F­trans ­> Faxial, the particle is accelerated in the direction of propagation of the beam.  However, when the laser beam is turned off, the effect vanishes, and the particles again move randomly.

Now, perhaps, the question arises in everyone’s mind: What’s the use of this tool? Answer is many!! A few is elaborated here. Optical tweezers can be used to trap atoms or molecules and

Applications of laser trapping technique or optical tweezer


bring them together so that selective chemical reactions can take place. It can be used for the microfabrication of microbeads in desired structure which can have many applications. For example, such directed assembly of microcrystals of semiconductors can be utilized in solar cells and LEDs. However, it is necessary to glue these structures together before the laser light is turned off. For this, we can utilize click chemistry, for instance, biotin-avidin linkage or photodimerization of surface ligands. However, the story behind the Nobel prize for optical tweezers is a bit different than only catching microparticles. It was mainly awarded for the non-destructive application of laser trapping in biology. Ashkin gave an idea about just what can be done with this simple technique of manipulating objects without touching them and provided scientists with bounty of hopes. Nowadays, optical tweezers are used to study single proteins and enzymes such as tracking the activity of individual enzymes, measuring the force needed to unfold a single protein molecule, or determine strength of binding between individual protein molecules, movement of molecular motors, and DNA studies. It is also used to sort healthy cells from the infected ones such as from cancer cells. Kudos to such a magnificent work for the betterment of mankind and hope for more in this area.

This is one half of the story. Moving on to next is Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA) which shared half of the Nobel prize with optical tweezers. This half of Nobel prize is more special because it was after more than 50 years that a woman was awarded in physics, and third in the list after Marie Curie (1903) and Maria Goeppert-Mayer (1963). The prize is shared between Gérard Mourou, a male French physicist and his former graduate student Donna Strickland, a female Canadian physicist. It won’t be over exaggerating if we say their work was groundbreaking that revolutionized the laser technology, since all the latest high-intensity laser application foots on CPA which has opened a high hope in the field of physics, chemistry and medicine. Previously, laser pulses could not be amplified much, and the output pulse energy had to be kept much below the saturation point, which is in the range of few millijoules to tens of Joule per square centimeter, to avoid any damages to the amplifier and the lasing/amplifying crystal by laser self-focusing. This limit was broken by the introduction of CPA in 1985 by Mourou and Strickland. 


Principle of Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA)


The technique is based on the stretching, amplifying and compressing of ultra-short laser pulses. When a laser pulse is stretched in time, its peak power decreases. As a result, it can be magnificently amplified without any damage to the amplifier or the lasing crystal. The pulse can then be squeezed again in time within a small area such that the output is a laser pulse with ultra-high intensity or peak power. This technique has made possible to create the most intense pulse ever in a laboratory. Some applications of this technique are photonic-assisted time-stretched analog-to-digital conversion, serial time-encoded amplified microscope, time lens processing and microwave signal analyzer, frequency domain reflectometry, chirped pulse lidar, and time domain pulse shaping. For general understanding, these applications seem to be quite difficult, isn’t it? No worries! There is one simple application of CPA technique in the field of medicine, that is eye surgery. Such ultra-short laser beams with high intensity can be used to drill through the delicate living membranes making eye operations efficient. Also, CPA technique can be used to study ultrafast processes that happens in the time scale of hundreds of attoseconds, such as those involving electron motions in atoms and molecules.

As said by Gérard Mourou that nobody is prepared for that moment, science is full of surprises and so is time. Still there are many more to come; the only thing is we should keep on doing and advancing step-by-step. Let’s do science for the betterment of our earth, for our present and for our future; and leave the fate of prizes and awards to time.

The blog is based on following references:
b)    Ashkin, A. Acceleration and Trapping of Particles by Radiation Pressure. Phy. Rev. Lett. 1970, 24, 156-159.
c)  Ashkin, A.; Dziedzic, J. M. Optical Trapping and Manipulation of Viruses and Bacteria. Science 1987, 235, 1517-1520.
d)  Ashkin, A.; Dziedzic, J. M.; Yamane, T. Optical Trapping and Manipulation of Single Cells using Infrared Laser Beams. Nature 1987, 330, 769-771.
e)  Yuyama et al. Crystallization of Methylammonium Lead Halide Perovskites by Optical Trapping. Angew. Chem. 2018, 130, 13612-13616.
f)    Misawa et al. Laser Manipulation and Assembling of Polymer Latex Particles in Solution. Macromol. 1993, 26, 282-286.
g)   Ghadiri, R.; Weigel, T.; Esen, C.; Ostendorf, A. Microfabrication by Optical Tweezers. Proc. of SPIE 2011, 7921, 792102.
h)    Strickland, D.; Mourou, G. Compression of Amplified Chirped Optical Pulses. Opt. Commun. 1985, 55, 447-449.
i)       Delfyett et al. Chirped Pulse Laser Sources and Applications. Prog. Quantum Electron. 2012, 36, 475-540. 

7/22/18

Post-doctoral fellowship in microfluidics in France

A biotechnology company specializing in innovative research in microfluidics is looking for post-doctoral fellow. The Individual Fellowship under the prestigious Marie Curie grant program is a prestigious, EU-funded fellowship that aims to recruit experienced researchers willing to perform research in an European innovative biotech.

This funding will result in a two year post doctoral appointment (~ 53k€/year gross salary depending on the candidate's family situation) in our headquarters in Paris, where the selected candidate will conduct cutting-edge research related to organ-on-chip and receive training in business and entrepreneurship. To be eligible to the grant, applicants need to hold a PhD or have at least 4 years of full-time research experience and meeting the mobility criteria of this programme (not having lived in France more than 36 months in the last 5 years).


Contact:

Sasha Cai Lesher-Perez, PhD
contact@microfluidics-valley.com

7/1/18

PhD scholarship in Theoretical Chemistry/Physics in New Zealand

The Institute for Advanced Study at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand, is looking for an excellent student with a Master of Science in Computational/Theoretical Physics or Chemistry to work on a Marsden funded research project (17-MAU-021) on superheavy element chemistry and physics.  The person is required to have excellent knowledge in either theoretical chemistry or physics. The project is in collaboration with Prof. Witek Nazarewicz from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Michigan State University, USA. The scholarship remains open until filled and comes with a scholarship to support for living expenses ($27,500 per annum) and tuition fees. Candidates are given the opportunity to obtain a PhD degree from Massey University. The duration of this scholarship is three years with the possibility of an extension.To be eligible for this scholarship you must fulfill the entry requirements for a PhD at Massey University.
Expressions of interest should contain the following information:
  • A one-page summary justifying the applicant’s suitability for the role
  • An academic CV
  • Two letters of reference
  • Transcript of qualifying degree
You can send expressions of interest and enquiries to Distinguished Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger at p.a.schwerdtfeger@massey.ac.nz


For more information about our research center or Massey University see the websites at http://ctcp.massey.ac.nz/and http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/home.cfm

For more information about nuclear physics group of Prof. Nazarewicz, see https://people.nscl.msu.edu/~witek/www/Nazarewicz.htm.

8/26/17

My daughter can recite the whole periodic table: is she prodigious?

By Dr. Harish Subedi


My daughter Riju says she loves chemistry and the periodic table. I got a copy of a colorful Periodic table from a Chemistry conference last August and put on the wall in her bedroom as she liked the colors and pictures on it. One day in early January this year, Riju copied the names, symbols and atomic numbers of first few elements on a piece of paper ‘for fun’. Later on the same day, we were surprised to see her memorizing the names and atomic numbers of a bunch of elements. I never expected that my daughter, a kindergartner at that time, would have that much of interest in chemistry. She was never introduced "any" chemistry concepts before.

After a few days, I decided to record a video on Riju talking about chemistry. She memorized the first 20 elements of the periodic table at that time. I posted the video on YouTube and shared among friends and family via Facebook. That was cool. Obviously I was so happy and so was her mom. In the video, she counted the elements with correct order of atomic numbers, symbols, and their applications/uses.


 

She kept learning more elements and asked me to record the video again when she was ready with more than 100 elements and got her favorite Periodic Table T–shirt. At that time, after a few months of the first video, the same girl recited all 118 elements in correct order of atomic number and symbol. In the later part of the video, as you can see, she took some time to give the correct answer but, interestingly, did not give the incorrect answer. It was so amazing to see my own daughter reciting so many elements that I never could memorize.

 

It felt like she was following a certain pattern and ‘looking for pictures’ in her mind to match the atomic number to its name and symbol. I was quite surprised to see this because the high school chemistry students usually have to memorize the atomic numbers and symbols of only first twenty or thirty elements. In most of the cases, a copy of Periodic table is provided in every single test, quiz, or assignment.


I wanted to get a deeper understanding on how the brains of children with exceptional abilities, known as prodigies, work and did a quick Google search. I ended up getting great examples of child prodigies in various fields. Few years ago, Arden Hayes, then 5–year–old boy, appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live and amazed the audience with his knowledge on the facts about all countries around the world. He is also an expert on names and facts about all US presidents. Similarly, a cute three-year-old girl Brielle astonished the audience in the Ellen Show by reciting the Periodic table. She is also a “human anatomy expert”. There are many other examples of child prodigies. Tiger Woods, an American professional golfer and one of the highest–paid athletes in the world, started playing golf at the age of two, Samuel Reshevsky, a Polish chess prodigy, gave simultaneous exhibitions at the age of eight, Wolfgang Mozart started composing music and performing in venues at the age of five, and Shakuntala Devi, popularly known as “human computer”, could calculate cube roots using mental math at the age of five.

Macmillan Dictionary defines child prodigy as “a child who is extremely skillful at something that usually only adults can do”. Whether the inherent ability (nature) or extreme training (nurture) is responsible for making a child “a child prodigy” has been a subject of debate. Some psychologists, including late Michael Howe, think that it is not that difficult to produce child prodigies given that the children get the right environment. Examples of Wolfgang Mozart and Tiger Woods could possibly justify this argument as both were introduced to their fields (music and golf, respectively) at their very early ages. On the other end of the spectrum, some researchers including Joanne Ruthsatz and her colleagues attribute the prodigious abilities to “exceptional working memory” and “attention to detail”. Analogous to the central processing unit of a computer, working memory is a cognitive system with a limited capacity that is responsible for temporarily holding information available for processing. A study conducted by Ruthsatz and colleagues showed that all the participating prodigies had incredibly high working memory scores (at or above 99th percentile). In addition, according to the psychologist Jonathan Wai, “Experts are born, then made” meaning the prodigies are not simply the products of their environments and what predominantly matters is their exceptional inborn cognitive abilities. It is too early to say what my daughter's future would look like but at present she is doing quite well.

Dr. Subedi is a chemistry faculty at Western Nebraska Community College, Scottsbluff, NE, USA.

3/11/16

Congratulation Dr. Ramesh Giri !!

for NSF CAREER award from National Science Foundation (NSF)


Sustainable chemistry is one of the fascinating sciences meant for the development of the environmentally benign processes, products and the chemicals. As a part of the developing the sustainable processes, Dr. Ramesh Giri, an assistant professor at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, University of New Mexico (UNM) has been working for the development of the transition metal-catalyzed organic transformations and investigating their reaction mechanisms. These research interests set by Dr. Giri and his team has been supposed to overcome the existing chemical problems of broader applicability. For instances, energy, materials, health, environment, etc.

Recently, his project on the development of a new technique for the cross-coupling reactions was selected for the CAREER award from National Science Foundation (NSF). NSF CAREER award is the prestigious awards in support of junior faculty that comes with a federal grant for research and education activities for five consecutive years. The award worthy $ 675,000 for five years is definitely going to booster the research work led by Giri.

Giri supposes the development of tandem and multi-component couplings with base metals and organic electronic donors has a huge impact in the pharmaceutical industry and the chemical world as a whole. He explains the reactions are widely used in the pharmaceutical industry for the production of marketed drugs, where palladium is used widely. But, for the development of the cost-effective processes, copper is used as catalyst, he explains.

Giri Research Lab (Photo: University of New Mexico)

Copper and Palladium belong to the transition metal (d-block) of the periodic table, however, they behave the different ways in the synthesis reactions. Indulging copper in the synthetic reactions and investigating the reaction mechanism is a difficult task. This is where a challenge lies, says Giri.

The NepaChem team wishes Dr. Giri and his team, all the success in the forthcoming days.

This post is based on the news report from University of New Mexico. Click here

Refer to the publications by Dr. Giri research group here.

NSF encourages submission of CAREER proposals from junior faculty members at all CAREER-eligible organizations. NSF Career award is the prestigious award given to early career scientists by United States National Science Foundation. Click here for details.