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A University of Colorado Denver engineer is on the cusp of giving scientists a new tool that can help them turn sci-fi into reality.

Imagine a safe gamma ray laser that could eradicate cancer cells without damaging healthy tissue. Or a tool that could help determine if Stephen Hawking's multiverse theory is real by revealing the fabric underlying the universe.

Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering Aakash Sahai, Ph.D., has developed a quantum breakthrough that could help those sci-fi ideas develop and has sent a ripple of excitement through the quantum community because of its potential to revolutionize our understanding of physics, chemistry, and medicine.

Advanced Quantum Technologies, one of the most impactful journals in the field, recognized Sahai's work and featured on the cover of its June issue.

"It is very exciting because this technology will open up whole new fields of study and have a direct impact on the world," Sahai said. "In the past, we've had technological breakthroughs that propelled us forward, such as the sub-atomic structure leading to lasers, computer chips, and LEDs. This innovation, which is also based on material science, is along the same lines."

How it works

Sahai has found a way to create extreme electromagnetic fields never before possible in a laboratory. These electromagnetic fields—created when electrons in materials vibrate and bounce at incredibly high speeds—power everything from computer chips to super particle colliders that search for evidence of dark matter.

Until now, creating fields strong enough for advanced experiments has required huge, expensive facilities. For example, scientists chasing evidence of dark matter use machines like the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Switzerland. To accommodate the radiofrequency cavities and superconducting magnets needed for accelerating high energy beams, the collider is 16.7 miles long. Running experiments at that scale demands huge resources, is incredibly expensive, and can be highly volatile.

Sahai developed a silicon-based, chip-like material that can withstand high-energy particle beams, manage the energy flow, and allow scientists to access electromagnetic fields created by the oscillations, or vibrations, of the quantum electron gas—all in a space about the size of your thumb. The rapid movement creates the electromagnetic fields.

With Sahai's technique, the material manages the heat flow generated by the oscillation and keeps the sample intact and stable. This gives scientists a way to see activity like never before and opens the possibility of shrinking miles-long colliders into a chip.

"Manipulating such high energy flow while preserving the underlying structure of the material is the breakthrough," said Kalyan Tirumalasetty, a graduate student in Sahai's lab working on the project. "This breakthrough in technology can make a real change in the world. It is about understanding how nature works and using that knowledge to make a positive impact on the world."

The technology and method were designed at CU Denver and tested at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, a world-class facility operated by Stanford University.

Applications of this technology

CU Denver has already applied for and received provisional patents on the technology in the U.S. and internationally. While real-world, practical applications may be years away, the potential to better understand how the universe works, and to thereby improve lives, is what keeps Sahai and Tirumalasetty motivated to spend long hours in the lab and at SLAC.

"Gamma ray lasers could become a reality," Sahai said. "We could get imaging of tissue down to not just the nucleus of cells but down to the nucleus of the underlying atoms. That means scientists and doctors would be able to see what's going on at the nuclear level and that could accelerate our understanding of immense forces that dominate at such small scales while also leading to better medical treatments and cures. Eventually, we could develop gamma ray lasers to modify the nucleus and remove cancer cells at the nano level."

The extreme plasmon technique could also help test a wide range of theories about how our universe works—from the possibility of a multiverse to exploring the very fabric of our universe. These possibilities excite Tirumalasetty, who once thought of becoming a physicist. "To explore nature and how it works at its fundamental scale, that's very important to me," he said. "But engineers give scientists the tools to do more than understand. And that's … that's exhilarating."

Next up for the duo is a return to SLAC this summer to keep refining the silicon-chip material and laser technique. Unlike in the movies, developing breakthrough technology can take decades. In fact, some of the foundational work that led to this pivotal moment began in 2018, when Sahai published his first research on antimatter accelerators. "It's going to take a while, but within my lifetime, it is very probable," Sahai said.