Achievement

Three years in the making, JILA now has 2 JILA MONSTRs (Multidimensional Optical Nonlinear SpecTRometers): one is helping the Cundiff group peer into the nanoscopic workings of semiconductor quantum wells. The other will allow the Jimenez group to compare myoglobin with heme proteins in plants. The comparison will be vital for biofuels production. A MONSTR is a compact, ultrastable optical platform machined from 2 cast aluminum plates, which have 3 cascaded and folded interferometers between them. Together these interferometers split an incoming coherent laser pulse into a box of 4 identical pulses. The travel time of each pulse through the MONSTR can be set to allow a well-defined sequence of 3 pulses to interact with a sample. A signal can then be generated that can be recorded as a function of 1, 2, or possibly 3 time dimensions. A Fourier transform converts sets of time data into multidimensional frequency spectra, which are easier to interpret than those produced by other methods.