14 DAY TRIAL // The next generations of lasers and infrared photodetectors will be used in a variety of applications covering many fields of research. Medical imaging technologies, astronomical studies and military devices could all be improved thanks to new work being conducted at the Arizona State University (ASU). The team here is being funded by the US Department of Defense (DOD), as well as by the Army Research Office (ARO), through the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program.
Sensing and imaging technologies will stand most to gain from new, advanced lasers. The DOD considers this line of research essential to protecting America's interests, and this is evidenced by the fact that the ASU team is this year's sole recipient of the MURI program grant. “This indicates national recognition of the research efforts at ASU in these areas. I’m very pleased to see our team selected, because competition for this particular MURI grant was very strong. Many of the teams competing are led by outstanding scientists,” says Yong-Hang Zhang, a professor at the ASU School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering. This is one of the university's Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.
The ASU group is made up of Zhang, David J. Smith, the Regents’ professor in the Department of Physics, and Shane Johnson, a senior research assistant at the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering. The experts will collaborate closely with colleagues from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and the University of North Carolina (UNC) for the new investigations. Their work will focus on gaining additional data on the basic properties of materials used to construct lasers and infrared photodetectors.
The research initiative will receive $6.25 million over five years. Of these funds, the DOD awarded $2.34 million to the Arizona State University. The team of experts at ASU has been recognized by state departments before. It received two other MURI grants over the past couple of years, and it was selected as one of the 32 research proposals that were submitted to the DOD for the fiscal year 2010. It is however the only proposal to have been made in the field of laser and photodetector materials research.