Towards LED-pumped Masers: a new class of room-temperature masers

“MASER”（受激辐射微波放大）是一种可以放大和探测极弱电磁信号的设备。潜在的应用包括更灵敏的电子顺磁共振（EPR）光谱学，磁共振身体扫描仪，深空电信，自旋量子计算机的读出方案，以及微波和射频“量子光学”的实施例。我们以前的研究表明，脉泽室温操作脉冲和连续波（CW）使用固态材料和激光/灯泵浦。一个关键的研究挑战是用更坚固和低成本的系统取代泵浦激光器。在许多应用中，由于缺乏更好的激光源而选择激光源。由于它们的低亮度，LED不容易适应泵浦脉泽。然而，LED泵浦的发光聚光器（LED-LC）是完美的，特别是强大的稀土基LED-LC，提供了新的方式的高亮度技术。发光二极管液晶是一种新型光源，其亮度填补了传统非相干光源与激光光源之间的差距。这项建议的重点是发展LED泵浦的微波激射器在室温下工作，使用发光聚光灯技术-这样的微波激射器还没有实现日期。这些脉泽将是低成本，安全，低维护，并允许简单的制造。该研究将开发世界上第一个LED-LC泵浦脉泽。LED泵浦LC的一个重要资产是能量缩放和大规模集体操作，确保长寿命，稳定性和鲁棒性。基于LED的亮度增强光源也将成为基础科学（了解亮度，亮度，光浓度等）以及科学，医学/医疗保健（医疗内窥镜检查，皮肤病学）和工业（RGB投影，3D检测）中的其他明亮照明和激发应用的新工具。由于其实现的复杂性，微波激射器仅用于少数专业应用，特别是用于射电天文学和空间通信的原子钟和低噪声放大器。这种新的方法和研究将使脉泽能够更广泛地使用，并开辟新的应用领域，如机场安全扫描，量子计算机，医学成像，并可能在改进传感器以远程检测炸弹方面发挥关键作用。这项工作将帮助英国在低成本室温脉泽和发光聚光器技术方面具有国际竞争力，影响世界领先的团体。此外，这项研究将产生新的想法（即，知识产权），这将在几年内在英国以及世界范围内提供经济和社会效益。

"MASERs" (Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) are devices that can amplify and detect extremely weak electromagnetic signals. Potential applications include more sensitive variants of electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy, magnetic resonance body scanners, deep-space telecommunications, read-out schemes for spin-based quantum computers, and embodiments of "quantum optics" at microwave and radio frequencies. Our previous research on masers demonstrates room-temperature operation in pulsed and continuous wave (CW) using solid-state materials and laser/lamp pumping. A key research challenge is to replace the pump laser with a more rugged and low-cost system. in many applications laser sources have been chosen for lack of better. Due to their low brightness, LEDs are not adapted easily to pump masers. However, LED-pumped luminescent concentrators (LED-LC) are perfect for this purpose, especially the powerful rare-earth-based LED-LCs, offering new ways of high brightness technology. LED-LCs are new sources whose brightness fills the gap between the classical incoherent sources and the laser sources. This proposal focuses on developing LED-pumped masers working at room temperature using luminescent concentrator light technology- such a maser has not been realised to date. These masers will be low-cost, safe, low maintenance and allow simple fabrication. The research will develop the world's first LED-LC pumped masers. A significant asset of LED-pumped LCs is energy scaling and massive collective operation, assuring a long lifetime, stability, and robustness. The LED-based brightness-enhanced light source would also be a profoundly enabling new tool for basic science (understanding luminance, brightness, light concentration, etc) and other bright illumination and excitation applications in scientific, medicine/healthcare (medical endoscopy, dermatology) and industry (RGB projection, 3D inspection). Because of their complexity in implementation, the masers are used in only a few specialised applications, notably atomic clocks and low-noise amplifiers for radio astronomy and space communications. This new approach and research will enable masers to become more widely available for use and open new application areas such as airport security scanning, quantum computers, medical imaging and potentially in a key role of improving sensors to remote-detect bombs. This work will help the UK become internationally competitive in low-cost room-temperature masers and luminescent concentrator light technology, impacting world-leading groups. In addition, the research will lead to new ideas (i.e., intellectual properties), which will provide economic and societal benefits within a few years in the UK as well as worldwide.