Scientists Create Phonon Laser Caltech Professor and KNI Board member Kerry Vahala, together with scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) in Garching, Germany, has created the first-ever phonon laser—a device that amplifies phonons in much the way that optical lasers amplify photons of light. A phonon is the smallest discrete unit of vibrational energy—the vibrational equivalent of a photon; and amplification in both the photon and phonon lasers results from a process called stimulated emission. The team describes the techniques that led to the phonon laser's creation in a paper recently published online in the journal Nature Physics. To read an announcement about the work released by the Max Planck Institute, click here. 09-04-2009

Caltech Physicists Create First Nanoscale Mass Spectrometer The new technique, developed over 10 years of effort by Michael L. Roukes, Professor of Physics, Applied Physics, and Bioengineering at the Caltech and codirector of Caltech's Kavli Nanoscience Institute, and his colleagues, simplifies and miniaturizes the process through the use of very tiny nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) resonators. Read more... 07-21-2009

New Method to Detect Quantum Mechanical Effects in Ordinary Objects —Scientists have successfully measured entanglement and superposition in photons and in small collections of just a few atoms. But physicists have long wondered if larger collections of atoms—those that form objects with sizes closer to what we are familiar with in our day-to-day life—also exhibit quantum effects. Matt LaHaye, postdoctoral research scientist, Keith Schwab, associate professor of applied physics, Michael L. Roukes, professor of physics, applied physics, and bioengineering, and their colleagues have developed a new tool that can detect quantum mechanical behavior in such ordinary objects. Read more... 06-19-2009

Congratulations to Ke Xu this year's winner of the Demetriades-Tsafka-Kokkalis Prize in Nanotechnology or Related Fields. Xu, an advisee of Prof. James R. Heath, will receive his doctorate in Chemistry in June and will work on nanoscopic optical imaging as a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Xiaowei Zhuang's group at Harvard University.

Ophir Vermesh, a student of KNI Board member Jim Heath, has won the first $30,000 Lemelson-Caltech Student Prize for his effort to develop a microfluidics chip called the Integrated Blood Barcode Chip (IBBC). This chip has the potential to completely change how clinical-based blood protein biomarkers are measured. As a measurement of the value of the IBBC, it is already being utilized in three different human trials, including a brain cancer trial that involves oncologists at UCLA.

March 10, 2009, The Kavli Foundation has announced the appointment of Dr. Robert W. Conn as its new president —only the second president since the Foundation was established in 2000. Dr. Conn begins serving as the Foundation's President in late April of this year. Read the Press Release.

The Kavli Nanoscience Institute (KNI) and the Microdevices Laboratory (MDL) at JPL joint seminar series, featuring talks on current research at each facility, continues on Monday, March 2, at 4 pm in 125 Steele Lab, with an informal reception to follow. This month's topic is "Electron Submillimeter-wave Technology" featuring Dr. Imran Mehdi, Principal Engineer, Submillimeter-Wave Advanced Technology (SWAT), JPL, and Jonas Zmuidzinas, Professor of Physics, on "Superconducting THz Receivers for Airborne and Space Astronomy."

Help us celebrate the KNI's one year anniversary! Come to 125 Steele on Wednesday, March 4 at 11:30 am to meet the Cleanroom staff, and get an overview of the equipment that's available in the KNI facility. Facility tours will be available all afternoon from 1-4 pm, simply sign in at the main office in 119 Steele. Lunch provided for those attending the overview. For more details, please contact the KNI: kni@caltech.edu or (626) 395-1547.

The Kavli Nanoscience Institute (KNI) and the Microdevices Laboratory (MDL) at JPL joint seminar series, featuring talks on current research at each facility, continues on Monday, February 2, at 4 pm in 125 Steele Lab, with an informal reception to follow. This month's topic is "Electron-Beam Fabricated Optical Components and their Applications" featuring Dr. Dan Wilson, an optical grating expert with extensive NASA mission applications and Axel Scherer, the Bernard A. Neches Professor of Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, and Physics; Co-Director, Kavli Nanoscience Institute. Scherer will speak on "lithographically fabricated optical nanodevices."