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New femtosecond laser facility slated to boost NIP's research capability
By Alicor Panao

L ooks so much like a Jedi’s light saber in the Star Wars flicks. But the straight green light emitted from the contraption actually travels in split-second pulses that the naked eye hardly notices.

That’s how fast the new femtosecond laser strikes – a quadrillionth of a second to be exact. It is also a measure of how fast lasers are moving research possibilities these days. And though it took much longer than a femtosecond, the new gadget could just provide the needed boost for the National Institute of Physic’s (NIP) various scientific researches.

“Having this new laser facility is a major step forward because many experiments in physics involve the use of light and light energy to excite a sample,” says NIP Director Dr. Cesar Saloma. “It will enable us to do investigations that are phenomenal,” he continues.

Since their advent 30 years ago, lasers have been part of many investigations in physics and the NIP actually owns several types already. But a femtosecond laser offers significant advantages over conventional laser sources, explains Dr. Saloma, in its ability to deliver high-peak power into target materials in a very short time interval. To the layman, this may not sound so exciting. But for scientists, this opens up the possibility of probing what Saloma calls “low probability events and non-linear processes” and even observe them through spectroscopy. This means being able to watch the mechanics of molecules in their various phases much like watching a goldfish in a bowl, or track the transitions of atomic particles – all of which could lead to a better understanding of chemical processes in general.

A graduate student demonstrates the power of NIP's new tool. Move over, Luke Skywalker.

By ionizing the material being exposed – dissecting it atom by atom – a femtosecond laser allows for near precise machining of everything from steel to tooth enamel to very soft materials like heart tissue. Its ultrashort pulses are too brief to transfer heat or shock to the material being studied, says Saloma, which means that cutting, drilling, and heating occur with virtually no damage to surrounding material.

In fact, short-pulse lasers have been slowly making their mark as the blade of choice in surgical medicine, especially in procedures on organs and tissues that bleed profusely when cut. In laboratory experiments, on the other hand, femtosecond types prove very reliable on studying organic and living samples.

Of course, the faster the pulses are, the wider the experimental possibilities. There are machines with pulse rates as fast as 10-18 seconds but they do not come out cheap. NIP’s newest facility, in fact, is an P18 million project already. Only P12 million of this amount, however, was used to purchase the laser facility. The rest was used to upgrade the laboratories and other facilities.

NIP Director Dr. Cesar Saloma discusses how NIP's latest acquisition can greatly expand the institute's research capabilities

But for Saloma, what makes the acquisition of the new laser equipment extremely important is not really its high-end technical description. Rather, it is the idea that doing so is an investment on good research tools for training homegrown scientists.

“To have a globally-competitive graduate school means having good facilities because a graduate degree is basically a research degree,” he says. “That before we graduate doctors, they must show us something that can contribute to the body of knowledge.”

NIP remains as the leading research center in physics and applied physics in the country. In 2001 alone, it published a total of 17 papers in ISI-abstracted journals and presented 90 technical papers in local and international conferences. Saloma hopes to see the NIP rise to become the best in Asia within the next five years by investing on research equipment, maintaining a core of competent faculties, recruiting bright students to its program and fostering an atmosphere of research in the community. To date, only the NIP has this cutting-edge laser technology in the country.

Saloma likewise hopes to share their technology and research with the rest of the University’s scientific community. “Currently, we are setting up a network of different microscopes for instrumentation utilizing the femtosecond laser facility,” he says. “This network will operate as a sort of service facility for our biologists, chemists, material scientists, and even students who will benefit greatly with the technology,” he added.