An Australian team is preparing to monitor deep space using a new invention that amplifies distant signals. At the core of the ‘Room-Temperature Solid-State Maser Amplifier’ is a specially synthesised purple diamond that can boost weak microwaves by a factor of 1,000.
Led by experimental physicist Associate Professor Jarryd Pla, the University of NSW team believes their device could one day be used to communicate with distant space probes and it could be a game-changer in radio astronomy — a field that uses the cosmic background radiation signals to map far-away planets and galaxies. But it could also have military and medical applications on Earth.
“This particular high-performance amplifier could enable technologies that will allow us to explore potentially the deepest regions of space,” Pla told Yahoo News.
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Radio telescopes help astronomers map distant stars in different wavelengths. These pictures of Circinus galaxy show hydrogen gas in blue, warm space dust in red, and stars in green. Source: The Royal Astronomical Society (from For, Koribalski & Jarrett 2012)
Could the machine theoretically amplify alien communications?
What’s hard to ignore is the niggling question of whether the invention could be used to scan the universe for signs of alien life. Pla said picking up these theoretical signals would come down to two key factors.
“It depends on what what frequency these aliens are communicating at, and how far these signals are coming away. Anything’s possible, right?” he said.
“This is an amplifier that in theory will enable the detection of extremely weak signals at gigahertz frequencies. So if they’re communicating with us at that frequency, then maybe.”
Associate Professor Jarryd Pla (left) and study lead author Tom Day with their Room-Temperature Solid-State Maser Amplifier. Source: UNSW/Richard Freeman
What’s the smallest signal that could be amplified?
During his interview with Yahoo, Pla recalled the moment his crew got the invention working in the lab. “We got a new batch of diamonds, and as soon as we tried it again, bang it just worked. It was a magical moment and something that I won’t forget,” he said.
The process works because the specialised diamonds contain tiny pockets of imperfection, called nitrogen-vacancy-centres, that amplify incoming microwave signals when they are exposed to a magnetic field and a laser beam.
It’s the light emitted by these nitrogen-vacancy-centres that gives the diamonds their colour. So scientists have ordered diamonds with a richer colour, because they’ll have more pockets inside them to amplify microwave signals.
The new system will be cheaper to operate than other comparable technologies because it doesn’t require masses of energy to super-cool the machine to minus 269 degrees.
As the University of NSW acquires new improved diamonds, the machine could theoretically amplify the shortest possible wavelength that can be transmitted or sensed in an optical system — known as the quantum limit. This means it could amplify faint signals from space probes like Voyager One.
“It has about the same power as a light bulb in your fridge, so the signals that you actually get back on Earth from that are absolutely tiny, so you need these very good amplifiers in order to detect them,” Pla said.
Details of the new discovery have been published in the journal Physical Review X.
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