A team of engineers and chemists from the University of Colorado Boulder, California Institute of Technology, University of California Santa Barbara and the three institutions is working on innovative technology to improve safety in industrial plants. The idea is to use a laser-based device to quickly detect and analyze airborne particles in the event of an industrial accident.
New laser technology to detect airborne chemical threats
The device, under development, is called Standoff Aerosol Measurement Remote Optical Network (SAURON)It takes its name from the villain of the “Lord of the Rings” book series – which often takes the form of a flaming eye with a “cloud, shadow, earth-piercing gaze”.
The idea here is this: an all-seeing eye capable of detecting dangerous aerosols against a crowded background of other objects.
Greg Riker, Paul M. Rady is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the project's principal investigator.
SAURON will focus on aerosols, the term for a wide range of small particles floating in the air. Some aerosols contain chemicals that pose a serious risk to humans, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Ammonium nitrate, a common ingredient in explosives, creates aerosols, an opioid drug like fentanyl that can be dangerous even in small amounts.
To detect such hazards, the team turns to a Nobel Prize-winning technology called a frequency comb laser. The program was made possible to protect people from a wide range of aerial threats, from industrial accidents to chemical attacks on crowded cities.
Lasers are battery powered, so they can be used at airports, city blocks, or industrial sites where hazardous materials are used. Immediately, people will know if there is a mistake or a leak.
Scott DeToms is a professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering.
Detecting dangerous aerosols is no easy task, especially given the complexity of the air we breathe. Since the atmosphere contains many different compounds such as methane and carbon dioxide at any given time, it is difficult to distinguish between harmful and harmless aerosols.
The use of frequency comb lasers in the SAURON project will help characterize this disorder and detect dangerous aerosols quickly and accurately.
The JILA team, a joint research institute of CU Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (JILA), pioneered the use of frequency combed lasers in quantum metrology and optical clocks. These lasers emit a beam of light containing millions of colors simultaneously, allowing them to act as fingerprint scanners for aerosols, untangling signals from small concentrations of particles or gases in the air.
Longpath Technologies, a company that uses these tools to search for methane leaks at oil and gas facilities, was founded by Riker in 2017.
In future work, SAURON researchers will work to make their lasers even more sensitive and more compact. The team uses innovative “integrated photonics” technology developed by Kerry Wahala at Caltech, John Bowers at UC Santa Barbara, and Nexus Photonics and HQPhotonics. Instead of using electronic signals, they use chips that can transmit information using light beams.
Researchers are turning basic science into practical technologies that help keep people safe.
We are taking technologies developed for quantum science and translating them to a wide range of applications.
Greg Riker
via www.colorado.edu
